


When You Leave

by letters_of_stars



Category: Free!
Genre: BUT HAPPY ENDING I PROMISE, Canon Divergence, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, a lot of angst but a lot of fluff mixed in there too, edit: i have been told that is a lie i apologize, major character death but that's sort of the entire plot??, no other specifically stated ships so up for individual interpretation i guess!, really not as soul-destroying as the premise makes it sound, the cons of dying in a swimsuit and other ghostly shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-17
Updated: 2015-11-17
Packaged: 2018-04-15 06:46:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 127,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4596891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/letters_of_stars/pseuds/letters_of_stars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rei Ryugazaki never expected to drown off the coast of the small island of Sukishima, but he's dealing with his death pretty well, if he does say so himself. All that's left is a fairly routine spiritual return to the living world, to make peace with what happened, say goodbye to his parents, and then he's off to the eternal afterlife as planned.</p><p>But he never expected that anyone would be able to actually see him as a ghost. And he never expected that person to be Nagisa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> this was inspired by an ask left by an anon on tumblr: AU where Rei drowned & passed away when he swam out in the ocean and now he haunts Nagisa (but in like, the friendliest way. He just misses him.) The other guys think Nagisa is crazy because they can't see or hear him. The angst would be overwhelming.  
> I kind of went nuts on this prompt anon. I hope you like it!  
> This fic will update each Monday!

Nagisa doesn’t know the exact moment that Rei Ryugazaki died in his arms.

He does know that he pulled Rei’s body up onto the sand, coughing water and croaking Rei’s name, like that alone would be enough to open Rei’s eyes. He knows the panic that gripped tight around his lungs when Rei didn’t wake up, knows he’d thrown his head against Rei’s chest and listened so hard for a heartbeat above the sound of the storm. He knows his entire body had felt numb and slow—much too slow—as he dragged Rei further up the sand so the waves could not reach them, thumping Rei’s head down to ground again and again and again and crying out his name with each impact. “Rei-chan!” Thump. “Rei-chan!” Thump. “Rei-chan!” He knows that he beat on Rei’s chest and forced his head back to open his airway and puffed air down his throat until he felt dizzy, and knows he kept clutching at Rei’s arms, crying for him to wake up _wake up_ wake up until Makoto and Haru ran across the beach to collapse by his side. He knows he kept screaming for Rei to just open his eyes—please, please just open your eyes—and he knows Makoto held him tight to his chest and let Nagisa clench helpless fists against his shoulders because nothing he could do could bring Rei back. Not anymore. Not anymore.

He knows he cried until he could barely move, his eyes puffy with salt and tears and his body shaking hard, even with the three of them huddled together as the storm slowly passed and the clear night began to shine overhead. The stars simply made it easier to see the expression on Rei’s face—so calm, just like he was sleeping—and Nagisa knows that at some point he left Makoto, curled up besides Rei’s body and drifted in and out of sleep, hearing snatches of conversation and the gentle lull of waves, the water so calm now.

He knows that Haru swam back to the main island as soon as he deemed it safe, and knows that the boat arrived with the dawn, at which point people Nagisa didn’t recognize dragged Rei’s body out of his grasp and took them all back across to the opposing beach and suddenly Ama-chan sensei was there and too many people asking too many questions with Makoto and Haru and Kou and even Rin and some other Samezuka boys hovering at the edges and Nagisa couldn’t take it, couldn’t take it at all, just pushed his hands over his ears and curled up so only he felt the hot splashes of tears he thought he’d cried out hours ago dripping down his face and falling to the sand.

He doesn’t know the exact time that he falls asleep, but he dreams of drowning. Of the way Rei’s struggle to breach the surface had grown weaker and weaker. And of how Nagisa had thought ‘just a little more, just a little more’, how he’d dived down deeper to wrap his arms tight around Rei’s chest, legs kicking desperately for the air so tauntingly close above them. Knows that somewhere in those few moments, Rei’s life slipped out of his grasp, and Nagisa wonders exactly which moment had been the last.

***

The next few days pass in a haze, a haze that seems to have wrapped entirely around his body and keeps him sluggish and reclusive and utterly alienated to those around him. His mother. His father. His sisters. Ama-chan sensei. Kou. None of them can understand. Not even Haru and Makoto, though he guesses they’d come the closest. But how can any of them know what it feels like? What it really truly feels like to know he’d been right there when Rei had died?

There is a wake.

There is a funeral.

Nagisa has a small bouquet of light purple hydrangea that he tucks right up beside Rei’s left temple in the casket, and he takes the chance to run his hand over Rei’s cheek. So cold. So cold and dead and gone and looking so strange in a tailored suit and missing his glasses which had never turned up. There are all these people Nagisa doesn’t know here with flowers and tears of their own and he’s not sure if he wants to cry or scream or grab Rei by the shoulders and beg for him to wake up, to stop playing pretend and still be alive and okay so Nagisa doesn’t have to hurt like this any longer, so no one here has to hurt like this any longer. It’s Kou who finally pulls him away from the casket so it can be sealed and taken for cremation. So Rei’s ashes can join the family shrine and he’ll forever hopefully be at rest.

And it’s Kou and Haru and Makoto and even Rin who retreat to the quiet safety of Haru’s house. The bitterness between Rin and Haru seems to have abated, at least for now, even if they still eye each other warily from time to time as they all sit around the table and say barely anything at all, until Makoto tentatively suggests dinner. Kou flat-out refuses to eat mackerel, disappears to go shopping, and arrives back in triumph in about a half-hour. In the moments where Kou is berating Haru for having nowhere to put the new groceries because of his overabundance of mackerel and Makoto is trying to keep the peace before fish start flying, Rin slides on over to Nagisa and puts an arm around him. Nagisa sniffs and looks up at Rin, who smiles so gently, more gentle than Nagisa had remembered, and pulls Nagisa close, his arm and chest warm and reassuring. Nagisa had wondered if things had changed between the two of them way they had for Haru and Rin, but right now, tucked against Rin like this, it feels like nothing has changed at all over the years, nothing at all. Rin is still the big brother he remembers.

Rin and Kou lost their father to the sea, Nagisa realizes with a pang of remembrance, drawing his knees up to his chest and feeling Rin’s arm tighten in response. Maybe they can understand a little. Maybe the haze around him doesn’t have to be quite so thick.

But even as everyone sits and eats Kou’s mackerel-less meal, Nagisa can only poke around the plate. He hasn’t really been eating much lately. It’s like there’s this hole in his belly that only feels worse the more he tries to fill it. If anyone notices the way he just pushes the food around his plate, they don’t say anything.

After dinner has been finished and the kitchen cleaned up, they all sit out on the back porch, side by side by side. A couple of stray cats come up to the bowl of milk Haru has left out, and Makoto inevitably ends up with one in his lap. Nagisa ends up sandwiched between Rin and Haru, with Kou on Rin’s other side reaching across his lap to hold Nagisa’s hand, thumb moving gently over his skin. They’re all suffering, he knows, and feels guilty about not offering comfort to them in return, but they don’t seem to mind. Instead, they treat him like the slightest touch will make him shatter. And maybe it would.

Every night he jolts awake with the memory of water in his lungs and salt in his eyes and Rei unresponsive in his arms and feels a little closer to breaking.

Though the porch is silent and shrouded in misery, no one seems to want to leave. Kou’s phone goes off after a while, and she stands. Her mom wants her home. She drags Rin after her too, saying that Nitori can deal with Rin’s absence for one night at least. Makoto and Haru both draw closer until it’s the three of them and the cats, sitting there with the stars above them and the breeze tugging at the collars of their nicest funeral attire.

And then it’s Makoto who finally says the words, the ones he’s been dreading.

“Nagisa, it wasn’t your fault.”

Nagisa takes in a sharp breath and closes his eyes tight, fights down the words that try to claw their way up his throat and out of his mouth.

That he should have been able to pull Rei’s body up to the surface of the waves, should have been able to swim faster, swim better, anything to get out of the water so he could force the water from Rei’s lungs and force the life back inside of him in exchange. That Haru had managed to pull Makoto from the water, and there’s no good reason Nagisa shouldn’t have been able to do the same for Rei, if he’d only been better. But he wasn’t good enough. There are no excuses.  

But he opens his eyes and nods and forces a small grunt out of his mouth, and neither Makoto or Haru look convinced but they don’t force the matter. And an hour later, Nagisa is sitting on the train alone, remembering how just a week ago Rei had sat at his side, and let Nagisa fall asleep on his shoulder with only a few minutes of grumbling later. Instead, now, Nagisa rests his head against a pole in the nearly empty car, and stares at his reflection in the opposite window, pale and exhausted and small, and he hates that reflection more fiercely than he ever has in his life.

Because Rei is dead, and it’s all his fault.

 

 

* * *

 

 

Dying, in the end, turns out to be quite easy, after the roaring rush of water and his own desperate cries and gasps for air have faded into an ear-ringing silence. The silence is broken only by the harsh intake of his breath, trying desperately to bail out lungs that had so recently filled with a salty water that’s left his body feeling chilled down to each finger and toe. But he’s alive, he thinks at first, and decides he can risk opening his eyes.

It’s bright, and he throws an arm over his eyes and moans. “Nagisa-kun?” They must be on a beach somewhere. And it’s morning already. How long has he been passed out?

“Nagisa-kun?” he asks again, lowering his arm slowly and blinking around at his surroundings. Which appear to be a lot of white, but he doesn’t have his glasses to help him. “Nagisa-kun?” The last thing he can remember is Nagisa pulling him through the water. They must have made it to this beach. Is Nagisa alright? Rei remembers with a wince the way he’d struggled and thrashed and panicked, and probably pulled Nagisa under the waves with him a few times. Utterly embarrassing. “Nagisa-kun?” He struggles to his bare feet, and stares down at whatever he’s standing on. It’s smooth, and white like everything else. This isn’t a beach. A hospital? Did he have to be hospitalized?

But no. He’s still wearing his swimsuit, and he can feel the goggles around his neck. Wouldn’t he be in a gown if he was in a hospital? But this isn’t a beach. It’s like a big white box that goes as far as he can make out. “Hello?” he calls, and the sound doesn’t echo back to him, swallowed by the endless white nothingness.

He only has two choices at this point. To stay put or try to find something, someone, anything. Maybe if he stays here Nagisa will come back and explain everything. But with the way Nagisa has latched onto Rei the past few weeks, the fact he hadn’t been there when Rei woke up is odd. Maybe Nagisa has been hurt. Maybe Rei had pulled him under for too long, in his panic to reach the surface.

It’s enough to propel him forward a few paces before he stops and wonders which way he should go. There’s just nothing everywhere he looks.

“Nagisa-kun?” he shouts again, cupping his hands around his mouth and sighing when, once again, nothing echoes back. “Haruka-senpai?” he tries, a little softer, and closes his eyes, letting his arms flop at his sides. “Makoto-senpai?” Nothing. This is incredibly strange and he’s beginning to feel increasingly nervous.

He heads left, because he’s always had a preference towards it, and walks along briskly. The air is strange too, he realizes. Like he’s walking through a thin fog. Not smoky. Just misty. And weird.

He wishes he had something to wear other than his swimsuit.

FIve minutes pass and he doesn’t find anything but more nothingness. Ten minutes. Twenty. And then he’s not sure how long he’s been walking anymore.

Something is very wrong.

He flops to the ground and sits cross-legged, chin in his hands. Maybe this is some sort of prank?

“Nagisa-kun?” he calls again. “Nagisa-kun, where are you?”

No answer. Not that he’d expected any.

He groans and hides his face in his palms. “Where am I?” he whispers.

And of course, that’s when he gets an answer.

“The Netherworld,” a voice says from behind him, and Rei yelps as he rolls forward, scrabbling back on all fours to get away from the man who is sitting quite peacefully right behind where Rei had been.

“W-when did you get there?” Rei babbles, trying to collect himself. The man is just sitting there, smiling in a pretty non-threatening manner. Without his glasses, Rei has trouble making out some of the details of his face,  but the smile he’s pretty sure of.

“You asked where you were, so I came to answer,” the man says.

“But...but…” Rei gets himself sitting back upright and crosses his arms across his chest, feeling oddly exposed. “Where did you say?”

The man tilts his head to one side and lifts the opposite hand, gesturing to the nothingness around them. “The Netherworld. The In-Between Place. Limbo. It has several names.”

“I-I-I…” Rei blinks, and rubs at his face, and hurts his neck whipping his head around so fast to look all around him. “The Netherworld?”

“Oh.” The man’s tone brings Rei’s gaze back to him. “You haven’t caught on yet.”

“Caught onto what?” Rei’s voice breaks a little at the end.

The man leans forward, and Rei leans instinctively towards him. A hand is offered, palm up, and Rei does hesitate then, but the man’s face is soft and kind and Rei scoots forward until he can place his hand down on the man’s. The man closes Rei’s hand in both of his, and his hands feel oddly...like nothing. Not warm. Not cold. Rei can feel the pressure, can see his hand encased in the other’s, but surely there should be some sort of warmth? Just what sort of place is this Netherworld? How did he end up here after Nagisa must have dragged him onto the beach? What hasn’t he caught onto yet? What…

Oh.

Oh no.

“I’m dead,” he says, and the man nods, patting Rei’s hand.

“It often takes a while, when you’re young.”

“I’m dead.”

“Yes.”

“Oh.” Rei sits back, letting his hand slide back into his own possession, and slumps where he sits. He’s dead.

No. More than that. He _drowned_.

The water stinging in his eyes and sloshing in his mouth and pouring into his lungs...it killed him? No, no, that’s can’t be right, Nagisa had been there...Nagisa wouldn’t have…

“Nagisa-kun?” He jolts upright. “Is Nagisa-kun alive? And Makoto-senpai and Haruka-senpai, are they alive?”

“Friends of yours?”

He hesitates. Friends? No. Not exactly. “Teammates.”

The man shakes his head no. “You’re the only teenager to come through here for a few months.”

Rei relaxes and rubs at his forehead. “Thank you.” At least there’s one thing good in this.

He stays in that position for a while. So. Dead. Now that it’s over with it seems like a rather silly thing to have been worried about all the time. The biggest complaint at the moment he has is that he’s still stuck in this stupid swimsuit, though he guesses that the endless nothingness of whatever this Netherworld is will get boring very soon and join the list of complaints. The man just sits there and keeps watching him, with a sort of endless patience that must be a trait of anyone who spends much time here.

Nothing seems to matter here as much as it had when he was alive. Vaguely, he feels guilty for dying on his family. For not giving his mom that extra hug before he left in the morning to go to the islands. For leaving that book half-read on the end of his bed. For missing classes at the high school and losing his chance to place nationally on exams. And he supposes the swim team will need a new fourth member. He wonders who it will be. Maybe Nagisa will tug on the sleeve of some other boy on the train, and lure him in with that smile and those smooth words and that will be that and Rei will be replaced and forgotten so easily. Because it’s not like he was truly a part of the team yet anyways.

The team that he died for.

The anger boils quick and unexpected in his stomach, and he pushes himself to his feet, arms crossed. But he forces the anger back down for now, fists clenching once and then relaxing. It wasn’t the team that decided to go swimming at night. That’s on him.

But Makoto didn’t die. The thought pops up in the back of his head, and he frowns. Haru must have saved Makoto, pulled him back up out of the water, gotten him to land. Why couldn’t Nagisa have done the same? Isn’t it Nagisa’s fault that Rei is here now? The thought seethes in that little bitter part of his brain.

That’s when the larger, more logical side of his mind reminds him that he’s much bigger than Nagisa. He’s taller with more muscle density.

But Makoto is much bigger than Haru. And Haru managed. That tiny spiteful part of his mind, voicing an opinion once more.

So just what happened with Nagisa? Did he unlock Rei’s arms from around his throat in order to keep himself from drowning too? Leave Rei’s body to be tossed back and forth through the waves?

Well, that would have been the logical thing to do, of course, once Nagisa realized Rei was dead. He shouldn’t risk his own life making sure a corpse makes it to shore. The thought still stings a little. Just a little. Like when Nagisa had complained about wanting to sleep with Haru instead of with Rei. A little sting that doesn’t make much sense but is still there nevertheless.

He’ll ignore it for now. “So,” he starts, turning back to the man. “This is the afterlife? Just this…” He gestures around them, letting his hands finish the question.

The man shakes his head. “No. This is the In-Between Place. For those of us who are dead but not quite ready to move on all the way yet.”

Rei waits for more of an explanation, but it doesn’t come. “Why aren’t you ready to move on? Is the afterlife...bad?”

The man hums and turns where he sits, one arm going out to trail aimlessly through the mist. And as his hand moves, Rei watches the color trail behind, so bright against the endless white.

“What is that?” he asks, and the man stops moving his hand. The colors disappear.

“The afterlife isn’t anything to be afraid of. This is just a place where souls can choose to wait.”

“Why would you want to wait?”

The man turns his head and smiles in Rei’s direction. “We wait, and we watch over those who might still need our guidance.” He moves his hand once more, and the colors spill into existence, and this time Rei can see the blurs of movement, and the mumbles of inaudible conversation. “See?”

Rei grimaces. “Not very well. I need my glasses.”

“Oh.” The man swipes a hand up, and the whiteness returns once more. “I keep a watch on my family. To make sure my children and wife will be alright. And if they truly need my guidance, from here, I can make them feel my presence. Even if they write it off as just a feeling.”

Rei sighs, and, after a moment, joins the man on the floor. “I don’t think there’s anyone who needs my guidance. I’m only fifteen. I don’t think I need to stay here.”

The man shrugs one shoulder. “Well, maybe it’s not always guidance. Haven’t you heard people say that the dead are never truly gone?” Rei nods. “Well, it’s because the ones we left behind need to be able to feel us sometimes, to know that we haven’t abandoned them. That we still love them.” The man gives out a short bark of a laugh. “Except in very special circumstances when we want to be sure those still alive to remember how much we hated them. That’s when a haunting occurs.”

“A haunting?”

“It’s not quite as dramatic as some movies would make it out to be. No hell-portals opening up, no messages written in blood on the wall. Mostly a returned spirit just acting as a malevolent presence. I wouldn’t recommend it. It doesn’t help with the whole ‘passing peacefully’ sort of vibe I think we’re trying to achieve.”

Rei raises his eyebrows and turns his head forwards, steepling his fingers and resting his chin atop. “A returned spirit? So that means we can return. Return to the living?”

“Yes. We can. A lot of young people do, actually. To say goodbye.” The man shifts, turning to look in Rei’s direction once more. “I like to encourage it. It’s a good way to achieve closure and accept the circumstances of your death.”

This man speaks like he’s had years of experience. Rei frowns. “Just how long have you been here?”

“Long enough. Long enough to get to know the place. To understand it.” The man grunts as he pushes his hands to his knees to stand up.

“And you just...spy on your family?” Rei starts to feel a little horrified. His grandmother had died a few years back and he hates the thought she’s been watching him from this Netherworld. There are some parts of his life he definitely doesn’t need anyone else looking in on.

The man must catch the direction of his thoughts, because he laughs again and stretches his arms above his head. “I give them the privacy they need. Mostly I watch them when I think they’re having a difficult time. Or when I get lonely.” He smiles softly when Rei turns his head to stare at him. “It has been years. I miss them very badly sometimes.”

“But aren’t there other people who stay here? That you could talk to?”

The man nods, running a hand through dark hair. “Yes. Of course. Not many of us stick around as long as I have, but there are a few. In this area, at least. I haven’t wandered the Netherworld as much as I could have, I suppose, since the connection to my family seems to weaken when I get too far. Which makes me think that the Netherworld does correspond to Earth, but that’s just a theory.”

His grandmother died in Tokyo. Hopefully that was a weak enough connection. Rei relaxes a little.

“So...what was that you were saying about returning?” Rei follows the man back up onto his feet. Experimentally, while the man’s back is turned, he tries sweeping his hand through the mist. Nothing.

“You have to be thinking about them,” the man calls back over his shoulder, and Rei’s cheeks go hot at being caught so easily. But he tries again, picturing his parents in his mind. For a moment, as his fingers cut through the mist, he can see snatches of color, what might be the shade of his mother’s hair..and then it’s gone.

“It takes some practice.”

Rei frowns and crosses his arms once more. “But I don’t need to practice, right? Not if I return?”

The man shrugs. “It’s your choice. You may go back, make peace with what happened, have a chance to say goodbye. And then move on through the Netherworld to the true afterlife.” He moves over to Rei’s side and swipes his hand through the air before them, and Rei’s eyes are besieged by the sudden burst of color and sound. The Iwatobi train station, if he can trust his blurry vision. In the bustle of the morning rush, the sounds of talking and banging and the trains settling into place and then moving slowly down the tracks. The yells of people desperately trying to reach the train before it leaves, and he catches sight of the colors of the Iwatobi High uniforms.

It’s home.

And suddenly he aches with how much he wants to be back among that throng of people, pushing and shoving towards the doors.

He’s dead. He’s well and truly dead. He won’t even ride the train again, or eat breakfast with his nose in a book, or go jogging, or pet the dog that lives down the street. He won’t buy food from the vendors and eat it while walking along the beach. He won’t go to festivals, he won’t take notes in class anymore. He won’t forget to water the plant in his room until it dies and his dad brings home a new one for the death sentence. He won’t lie on his bed in the dark and feel the cool press of the pillow against his face. He’s dead. He’s dead and there’s still much he had to do. It’s unfair. It’s so completely unfair. He can give up the larger dreams of finishing top of his class at one of the country’s best universities, or winning the Nobel Prize in physics. He just wants to ride that noisy, crowded train and feel the press of people all around him once again.

Wow, way for a feeling to kick in when he’s least expecting it.

He aches to be alive. He aches for it in every fibre of his body, whatever it is his body is made up of now. Dying was much too easy. He’s not ready for it yet.

“I’m really dead, aren’t I?” he whispers as he stares at the vibrant life of the train station, and the man doesn’t say anything in reply. Probably understands it wasn’t a question.

But returning. Returning is an option. Going back, making peace, whatever that was. Maybe...maybe if he has to accept the fact that he’s dead, going back to say goodbye will help.  He thinks about his mother, and his father. His brother away at university. Probably home now, actually, for the funeral that must be happening. It would be nice, to be able to walk among them, one last time, even if they could only possibly feel his presence.

He frowns, and bites at his lip a bit before looking over and asking the question. “But I thought that funeral ceremonies prevented us from returning?”

The man laughs again, and makes a little wavy gesture with his hand. There goes Iwatobi Station. “With rules and beliefs changing so quickly these days, it makes for a little bit of leeway. The only thing I know for sure is that beyond here is a place of peace, the true afterlife for those who are ready to leave the world behind entirely. Here is the In-Between Place, for those who still want to keep an eye on things. And then there’s the living world, where we no longer belong. But it doesn’t do anyone much harm if you want to pop in and say goodbye to your parents and that sort of thing. I told you that I encourage younger people to do that. Go down for a few days, say their goodbyes, make peace with things left unfinished. And then most of them go on to the other side. Most of those who stay here are a bit older, like me, who feel they have a bit more responsibility. Watching my kids grow up, making sure they don’t turn out complete delinquents. But for young people like you? There’s so much more on the other side. And when their time comes, the people you love will cross to the other side too, and you’re reunited once more. Really, for all that people fear it, death isn’t such a bad deal after all, is it?”

Rei sighs and taps one finger against his chin. He glances down at his bare chest, and his swimsuit that still feels damp from seawater. His goggles dangle against his chest, and he sort of wants to pull them on over him eyes so he can see a little better, but he feels ridiculous enough sitting here in just a swimsuit. He doesn’t so much as sit back down as collapse in exasperation.

“Any chance I can change clothes?” he asks, voice a little plaintive. The man shoots him an apologetic grin.

“Not that I’ve seen so far. But you’re not the worst one off, trust me.”

“Wha—”

“No. No. Really, just trust me.” The man laughs again. Rei frowns a little and juts his chin out, sitting up straight. “So I can just...go back? And no one will be able to see me?”

“Well, I’ve heard of a few cases, and of course there’s all the ghost stories that have come out of it but…” The man shakes his head. “I doubt it. Not unless there’s an incredibly strong pull.”

“A pull?”

“Between you and another person. Sometimes it happens between spouses, or close siblings. I’m assuming you’re unmarried…”

Rei thinks about his brother, Katsumi, and the forts they’d used to build together, back when Rei had first started school and his brother was beginning junior high. They’d strung sheets together and tucked the corners behind chairs and thrown pillows all over the floor and created a little haven where they could play board games and video games and laugh over whatever constituted as funny at that age. Rei remembers the way they’d slide their homework out from under the confines of the tent for their mom to check, and how she’s slide the paper back along with snacks and a drink, so they could continue their camping until it was time for dinner. Of course, the appeal of forts had diminished over the years and ever since Katsumi left for university their conversations were mostly limited to texting and…

No, Katsumi probably won’t be able to see him.  It doesn’t actually hurt to admit that. There was nothing left unfinished between him and Katsumi. They were brothers, they loved each other, and Katsumi is hurting now and probably always will a little, but he’ll move on, and be happy, and Rei has no reason to haunt him.

“What about my parents?” he asks, turning his head to watch the man. “Isn’t there a pull between us?” The man sighs, and dips his head a little before he replies.

“Parents tend to be able to sense the presence of their child stronger than anyone else. So yes, there is a pull, if the relationship between parent and child was a positive one. But there’s also age to take into account.”

“Age?” Rei asks, a little vaguely. This being dead thing is becoming increasingly complicated.

“Yes, well, everyone knows children are more susceptible to the presence of the supernatural. So while your parents may have a very strong bond to you, they’ll write it off, whereas a child is smarter than that. If you have a younger sibling with whom you have a strong connection, they’ll probably be able to see you. Of course, adults think it’s just a manner of coping and after a while the dead will decide to move on, and the adults will think the child has gotten over a phase. But kids are always more ready to believe in things like ghosts.”

“Ah.” Rei frowns and lifts his head, stretching his legs out in front of him. His bare feet knock together—once, twice, three times. His legs still look a little wet, in this lighting. He turns to look over his shoulder. As he watches, a droplet of water makes its way down his back and splashes into nothingness. Eternally in a bathing suit and goggles around his neck and eternally wet as well? He doesn’t like the sound of it.

“But then there’s the matter of unfinished business.” The man crouches down so Rei is forced to meet his eyes, which crinkle at the edges. “I need you to hear me out on this, because this is where the horror stories about ghosts come from.”

Rei nods. “Alright.”

The man sits back and puts a hand on each knee. “Sometimes those who have died have stuff left on earth that still needs doing. That can mean a lot of things. Avenging your murder is the most well-known but not necessarily common one. Most of the time it’s something small, and it’s different for every person. Just something that keeps your soul from moving on to the afterlife, because it still needs doing. A few months ago an old lady who lived pretty reclusively returned to the living world to prompt her neighbor to go check on her house. Nothing special. Didn’t even appear to her. Just planted the thought that maybe it would be a good idea to check on the old woman next door. Which led to the simultaneous discovering of the body and release of five cats that would have starved to death otherwise, which was the intent of the haunting in the first place.” The man laughs. “I think finding the body wasn’t that much of a concern to her honestly, as long as her cats were alright.”

It’s enough to make Rei smile. “And that’s what you call a haunting?”

The man nods. “Yep, exactly. And then, when her business was finished, the Netherworld pulled her back. It always pulls us back, in the end, to make sure spirits don’t stay past their time.”

Rei nods. It makes sense. Wouldn't want spirits wandering around all over the living world. It would get messy.

“Can you think of anything you left unfinished at all?” the man asks.

“Besides the rest of my life?” He tries to smile a little to show it's a joke.

The man just nods. “Yes, besides that.”

Rei sucks his bottom lip between his teeth. Something left unfinished? Something to keep him from going peacefully into the afterlife? He can’t think of anything. “No, I don’t think so.”

“Alright.” The man nods. “Well then, I doubt you’ll be visible or exert much influence over anyone in that case.” He smiles again. “I’ll warn you, when I went to say goodbye, it had been a few weeks since I’d died, so there will be a time-gap.”

“Wait, what?”

“A time-gap. I think it’s because it takes a little while for our souls to find their way here, but again, that’s just me guessing. Maybe we hang around our bodies for a while, in case some handy mouth-to-mouth or defibrillator happens to make a difference.”

“Oh.” That’s for the best, probably. He’s not sure he wants to return just to see his dead body being hauled out of the ocean. But he does want to return. Wants to see his parents, try to offer some comfort if he can. Let them know he loves them. Wants to see the school, and the train, and the town, and imprint it all onto his memory so that when he returns to this Netherworld, he’ll be ready to step right past it into the true afterlife.

Yes. That will work.

He turns to the man and manages to smile. “So...how do I get back?”

The man frowns a little and crosses his arms. “I’ve only done it once and it was years ago, so I might not be a lot of help. This tends to be a pretty personal thing.”

Rei shakes his head dismissively. “That’s alright, I can figure it out.”

“Well. I would start by focusing on the place you died. Your soul came here via that route, so it will automatically gravitate back that way.”

The place he died. Somewhere in the ocean, beneath the waves. Rei tries closing his eyes, to remember, to focus on the chilling embrace of the water all around his body and inside, wrapped tight around his heart and lungs as Nagisa’s arms pull feebly upward…

He starts forward, eyes flying open. No, not there, that’s not a good place to start. If he’s going to do a proper haunting, he wants to begin on solid ground.

His head drops forward and his eyes shut once more. One hand finds its way to his chest, feeling as it expands and contracts, expands and contracts. Does he even need to breathe anymore, he wonders, or is it just force of habit? Before he can check for a heartbeat though, the man’s hand is back on his arm. “Are you alright?”

“Yeah. Yeah.” Rei’s arms drop back to his sides and he draws his knees up to his chest. “Just…”

“You don’t need to explain it.” The man’s smile is warm, and Rei blinks up at him, suddenly wondering which family he watches over. Which children live on not even realizing how diligently their father watches them, how much he loves them, how ready he is to lend his guidance whenever they need? He’s not just a man. He’s a father, and it must be a father thing because the man puts both hands on Rei’s shoulders, thumbs rubbing gently up and down. “It’s over now. Whatever happened, it’s over.”

Rei takes in a deep breath, and another, tries to steady himself. He’s not going to fall apart over this. He won’t. He shrugs the man’s hands off slowly. “I think I’ll try a different place,” he says, refusing to meet the man’s eyes. School, perhaps. Or his bedroom. Either is familiar enough.

“It’s easiest to get back when it’s connected to how you died,” the man tells him softly, as if he can read Rei’s mind. Maybe he can. Maybe there are all sorts of secrets about being dead Rei has yet to learn.

“Yeah. I’ll just...I’ll just…” Rei scoots further away and situates himself so he’s cross-legged, hands folded in his lap with eyes squeezed tight. Ready to concentrate. A place to pull him back...a place to hold onto…somewhere familiar, where he can anchor himself and push his soul back to the land of the living.

Home? His room? He hasn’t been spending all that much time at home lately, to be honest, not since the semester began and became involved in track, and then tangled up in the swim club. School will do.

School. School will work. School, school, school…

No sucking sensations. No ghostly wailing. He opens his eyes and meets the man’s smile. “Keep trying!”

Rei eyes him up but gets back into position, and closes his eyes once more. School. School. School.

“Try to immerse yourself in the memory,” the man says very quietly, and Rei nods as he breathes out slowly. He pictures the classrooms. The chalk left behind on the boards and the desks in neat little rows. Inhales. The books stacked in the cubbies beneath the desks, and the way the wall along the back had been damaged years ago, pockmarked black in the left corner. Exhales. The hallways, filled with students, chatting and bustling and laughing and meeting and blushing and frowning and worrying. Their bags held clutched in their hands, uniforms worn in a variety of ways. With sweatervests, even in the summer heat. The buttons undone at the top. Ties askew, or done up tight. The girls’ skirts at various heights until some teacher tells them off, hair up in a bun or let loose around their shoulders. Inhales. The teachers’ office, filled with the sound of typing and the rustle of paper. The track field, scattered with water bottles and pieces of equipment. The pole vault all set for someone to try to leap over it. Perfect form. The smell of sweat and new sneakers. Exhales. The roof, with groups of students eating lunch together, the luckiest one having snagged a spot in the shadows. A few dangling their feet off the edge, sucking on juice boxes or milk. The locker rooms, a place where Rei changed quickly, eyes very firmly locked onto the bare contents of his own locker. Inhales. The pool. The pool, sparking blue. The pool where he’d sunk down again and again and again as he tried to learn to swim, unable to swim for Nagisa, or Makoto, or even for Haru. Even with the butterfly stroke in his arsenal, he still feels embarrassed thinking about how he sunk over and over under the water as he failed the breaststroke and the backstroke and the crawl, water in his eyes, in his mouth, in his lungs and oh gods he has to stop thinking about this because he hasn’t felt anything and thinking about the school is obviously not going to work and he might not be able to return at all and the memories of the pool are making him feel like he’s drowning all over again...

He opens his eyes and throws himself backwards with a gasp, and then squeezes his eyes shut once again as the pain flares across the back of his head.

“It’s not working,” he mutters, sitting up and rubbing at his head. Things like that shouldn’t hurt when you’re dead; that’s not fair. “It didn’t work,” he says, and opens his eyes to look at the man.

But the man isn’t there.

Instead, Rei stares up into a sky speckled bright with stars.

 

 

 


	2. Chapter 2

No one ever warned Nagisa that losing someone would hurt like this. Hurt, sure, of course, it was only natural to hurt to lose. He’s seen it in movies and television shows, read about it in his favorite books. Losing someone is meant to hurt.

But no one ever told him it would eat him from the inside out.

He knows everyone is worried about him. And not just because his parents, Ama-chan sensei, and Makoto and Haru have all told him so. Multiple times. He can tell by the silence whenever he enters the room, the words that go unsaid, as if any words can hurt him more than he already hurts. He can tell by the space, the way people pause before they touch him these days, and leave him a wide berth wherever he walks. Even people on the train seem to sense what’s on his mind, and the seats beside him tend to stay empty, even when there are plenty of people who could use them. It’s as if his grief radiates outwards, repelling people away.

The only one who tried to snap him out of it was Kou. Taking him out for karaoke and lunch, him and her and Hana. And maybe it would have worked, if he’d let it. Maybe he could have smiled as Kou squawked her way through the songs, eaten the milkshake Hana had pushed across the table at him. And maybe he would have felt better, felt like maybe he doesn’t have to be sad for the rest of his life.

But that’s the thing. Does he even deserve to try to be happy anymore? When Rei is dead and gone and it’s all Nagisa’s fault, does Nagisa have the right to try to be happy again?

He can’t even be sure anymore if he hurts because he hurts or because he believes so badly that hurting is what he deserves. Maybe it’s both. He feels so tangled up inside and it’s so much easier to just let himself hurt rather than trying to figure it out.

All he does at night anymore is lie there and think of what he should have done differently. How he could have hauled Rei out of the water just a little sooner, just a little sooner so he could have breathed life back into him, sat back in relief as Rei coughed water up onto the sand. Maybe if he’d swum just a little faster, rolled with that wave instead of trying to fight through it, realized sooner that Rei’s grip around his neck was weakening. So many things he could have done, but didn’t. And when he’s done lying there and thinking of all the ways he could have changed what happened, he falls asleep and relives what did. Over and over again.

He swims, because it comes automatically, and Makoto and Haru pretend not to hear when he balls himself up in the corner of the locker room and tries to muffle the sobs the best he can, remembering how four of them had been in here all together, just a few weeks ago. He swims, and swims, and swims in the hope he’ll fall exhausted into a dreamless sleep, but it doesn’t happen.

His parents had said that maybe the wake and funeral would help. But it hadn’t, as he’d discovered in the days following. If anything, it made it worse, because it had felt so final. Goodbye Rei.

He’d asked permission to visit the family shrine, and Rei’s parents had given it, and offered him tea and a snack, but he’d turned them down. Rei’s mother looks so much like him, and he doesn’t think he could stand staying in the same room with her without crying again. He’s cried so much in the past three weeks he may as well have drowned too anyways.

He didn’t even make it to the shrine. Just turned around and headed right where he came from as the rain came pouring down around him.

He’s falling apart and he knows it. But he can’t be bothered to try to pull himself back together. He doesn’t have the energy for it. Or the will.

Goodbye Rei.

And now.

Now his legs dangle in the pool water, kicking gently back and forth. The only light is from the phone held in his hand, lit up with messages from home. His mother. Worried about where he is. He’d told them he was going out to eat with Haru and Makoto, but it’s gotten too late for that excuse to hold. His legs splash in the water as he kicks them again, and he lies back until he’s stretched out across the pavement, phone held up above his face. He can’t come up with any more excuses. He’ll have to go soon now, back to a house where the silence he was once able to fill lurks like a living thing, and everyone very carefully avoids any and all subjects that could be even distantly related to Rei. Even his sisters, which is how he really knows he’s changed.

Maybe this is the sort of the thing that really does change a person forever.

He lowers his phone to his chest and closes his eyes, and kicks his legs slowly, listening to the sound of the water. Makoto and Haru had just let it lie when he’d said he’d lock up after himself. He’s been staying after practice pretty often.

A breeze blows through the fence surrounding the pool and ruffles his hair, sending a strand or two across his lips. He scrunches his nose and reaches up to pull them away. He should go, he really should, or his mother is going to come looking for him, and he doesn’t want to cause her any trouble.

He just.

He just doesn’t know what to do anymore. He didn’t even know Rei very well—the way he’s acting may as well be a huge insult to his family, who actually have a right to be feeling like this. He doesn’t. He doesn’t get to act like a huge hole has been ripped through him and he’s lying here bleeding to death with only the stars to see.

But fifteen days ago Rei Ryugazaki died in his arms, and Nagisa aches in every single part of his body, aches with the guilt and the loneliness and the fact that more than anything he wants to turn around in his train seat to find Rei sitting there trying to read and trying to look vaguely annoyed in that way Nagisa had seen through in three days. Because Rei wasn’t ever really as annoyed as he tried to pretend he was, not really.

Maybe that’s part of why he hurts so much. Ever since Nagisa had seen Rei soar over that bar at track practice, everything had become so much more important than Rei having a girly name or even finding a fourth member for the swim club. It had been because Rei had looked so beautiful in that moment, and Nagisa wanted so badly for Rei to let him into his life, because he just knew there was so much more beauty in there for Nagisa to discover, if Rei would just let him. It’s not a feeling he can fully understand himself, let alone explain to the counselors his parents and Ama-chan sensei want him to go see.  

Maybe he hadn’t known Rei very well. Or for very long. Maybe they weren’t close friends. But they might have been. Every fiber Nagisa is made of feels the same. They might have been so much, and now that possibility has been snatched from him. He’s hurting from the loss of something that didn’t even exist.

Is there any way of mourning something that wasn’t even real yet?

It’s that question that keeps him here, feet dangling in the pool and the brush of air chill against the tear stains drying on his cheeks as the night gets darker and darker and he dreads the idea of falling asleep and dreaming of storms and sea over and over again.

 _Footsteps_.

Likely the janitor. Nagisa wipes quickly at his eyes and sits upright, pulling his feet from the water. He glances around, but the janitor and his flashlight aren’t there. But the footsteps are, soft yet audible from the corner of the pool. Nagisa frowns, and slips his feet into his shoes, still slippery, with his socks balled up in his fist. He reaches out with the other hand and nabs the strap of his backpack, and stands in a fluid motion as he pulls the pack over one shoulder.

The footsteps keep getting louder.

Nagisa’s heart starts to beat a little harder. If it’s not the janitor, who would be hanging out in the dark by a school poolside this late at night? There’s really a limited range of options, and none of them end very good for him.

He holds his phone tight to his chest and gets ready to dial, as the footsteps get louder and louder and the shadow of a man appears out of the corner. “Who’s there?” he asks, voice dry and broken and not as loud as he’d wanted it to be, but the figure stops. Just stops. No answer. Which Nagisa really hadn’t expected.

“Hello?” he tries again after a moment, taking a small step backward in his wet shoes. “Who are you?” He pushes the button on his phone, and it lights up, screen pressed against his chest. “Hello?” He turns the phone around, and watches as the light flickers on bare feet, up legs clad in familiar purple and black swimtrunks, bare chest, goggles dangling around a slender neck, and finally—finally—the bewildered face of Rei Ryugazaki.

Well, that’s it. It happened. He really went mad. He stumbles back in wet shoes and flails backwards, his backpack softening the blow as he lands. The phone flies from his fingers and skitters across the concrete to halfway between him and the apparition, lighting Rei up top to bottom. Rei is still just staring at Nagisa in confusion.

“Rei-chan?” Nagisa asks, voice soft.

“Wait, you can see me?” the fake-Rei asks, sounding almost horrified, and Nagisa gives up. He lies down on the pavement and closes his eyes, lying half-on and half-off his backpack. He can feel his economy textbook digging into his shoulder. Maybe if he just lies here, things will get back to normal. He might be missing Rei more than anything, but that didn’t mean he wanted his brain sending him hallucinations.

The sound of bare feet on concrete, right around him up to Nagisa’s face. “Nagisa-kun? You can see me?”

“My eyes are closed,” Nagisa declares. And then, says it a few more times for emphasis. “My eyes are closed, my eyes are closed, my eyes are closed!”

“Well, open your eyes then!” Hallucination-Rei sounds cross. Nagisa has to give his brain points for getting the irritated tone just right. But he doesn’t want to open his eyes. “No.”

“Why not?”

“Because.” Nagisa bunches his hands in his uniform sleeves and pulls his hands up over his eyes. “If I ignore you, you’ll go away, right?”

“Nagisa-kun, I…” Hallucination-Rei makes a frustrated sound in the back of his throat. “Why are you able to see me? No one was supposed to be able to see me!”

“You’re _my_ hallucination,” Nagisa mumbles, adjusting a bit to prevent the economy book from poking a hole straight through his shoulder. “Of course I can see you.”

“I’m not a hallucination!” Rei snaps, and Nagisa uncovers one eye and squints up at Rei, who is barely lit up now by the light of the phone.

“Then what are you?”

“I…” Rei pauses, and frowns, and crouches down so he’s closer to Nagisa and easier to see. He squints without his glasses on, and his forehead is all wrinkled with concentration. Or maybe worry. Nagisa can’t tell. Finally, Rei sits on the pavement with a sigh, and pinches the bridge of his nose. “Well, technically speaking, I guess I’m a ghost.”

 

***

Nagisa rides the train home with a ghost sitting next to him, and that’s definitely the first time in his life that’s happened. He thinks. Maybe it’s happened before and he just couldn’t see them.

Okay, so it’s the first time he’s _consciously_ ridden the train home with a ghost sitting next to him. He keeps glancing over at Rei, and then to the window opposite, where there’s no Rei. No reflection at all. And no one on the whole walk to the train station had given Rei a second glance, and he really does look weird in his swimsuit and goggles with bare feet like that. He’s about 90 percent transparent, Nagisa realizes. He’d thought Rei was completely solid at first in the dark, but on the train in the glaring lights he can see the bright red of an advertisement through Rei’s chest.

“So…” Nagisa starts, when the only other person in the car with them gets off at the station. “A ghost?”

Ghost Rei has his arms crossed against his chest and is looking extremely, extremely annoyed. “Yes.”

“And I can see you.”

“Apparently.”

“But other people can’t.”

Ghost Rei sniffs and goes to adjust his glasses, so his fingers end up poking his eyes. “Ouch! I mean...I should go home to my parents. They’ll be able to see me, I’m sure.”

Nagisa adjusts his backpack in his lap and leans over onto it. He’s been so muddled up and confused these past weeks already, and now this is just making things even more complicated. It’s still probably his mind playing a nasty trick on him, but here’s Rei beside him on the train looking vaguely annoyed and it’s everything Nagisa’s been daydreaming of. Maybe he can let his mind keep tricking him for a bit. He pillows his head in his arms and watches Rei through half-hooded eyes, watches as his face moves through all those expressions Nagisa always found hilarious until he can settle on the one he wants.

“Yes,” Ghost Rei decides, with a decisive nod. “They’ll be able to see me.”

“Okay.” Nagisa smiles a little, but isn’t sure Rei sees it. “And then what?”

Rei frowns a little and juts out his lower lip. “I say goodbye to them, I guess. I didn’t think anyone would be able to see me. And then I might go around town a little. To say goodbye. That’s what this whole thing was supposed to be about. Closure.”

“Oh.” There’s a lot of questions Nagisa wants to ask, but right now, he’ll just go along with it. It had been so easy to climb up off the ground and follow Rei towards the train station, maybe because it’s what he’s been yearning for, so badly, for weeks. Closure, huh?

When he wakes up tomorrow to a world that has stolen Rei away not once but twice, he doubts it’ll feel like closure. Even if this is still almost definitely a hallucination.

“Can I touch you?” he asks after a few minutes of silence. Rei shoots him an alarmed look.

“Why?”

“Because you’re able to walk and sit on the train just fine. So I want to know if you can touch me.” Okay, maybe he will ask a few questions. The horror movies he’s watched over the years never really got into the technical side of things. Like how a ghost could possibly write on the wall with blood. Whose blood exactly were they using? Where did they get it? A blood bank? And if it was ghost blood, why did it become visible the moment it left the ghost’s body? Does that mean if a ghost spit, that would show up visible? Or do ghosts carry around markers that happen to write in blood? Really, there’s such a lack of logic and it’s always frustrated him.

“Oh,” Rei says, and clears his throat awkwardly. His hair still looks damp, glistening in the lights of the train car. “I suppose so.”

Nagisa pokes his shoulder. His finger goes right through, disappears right inside that 90 percent solidity, and Rei yelps. “That feels weird!”

“It feels cold,” Nagisa mumbles, and pokes him again. Rei nearly jolts out of his seat.

“Stop that!” He scoots as far away from Nagisa as possible, head turned obstinately away, but then turns back a second later. “I feel cold?”

Nagisa nods, and goes back to hugging his backpack with both arms. “Not very cold. Just a little bit. Chilly, I guess.”

Rei hums, and crosses his arms. “Well...you felt warm. When you poked your finger through my shoulder. Which felt very weird, I think I mentioned.”

“So…” Nagisa is really feeling tired all of a sudden, not the same drained-out tired of the last few weeks, but a real get-into-bed-and-sleep sort of tired. Maybe tonight will be a dreamless one at last. “Why can you sit on things and walk but can’t touch me?”

“I…” The train beeps as it approaches the next stop. Rei clears his throat instead of answering and stands up, wobbling a bit when the train begins to slow down. “I’m not sure. I’ve only been here for less than an hour. It will take time to...to...to work out the logistics of everything. And anyway, it’s our stop.”

“Okay.” Nagisa yawns as he scoots forward in his seat, so he can handle his backpack around onto his shoulders. He waits until the train stops before standing and following Rei out the door. “Do you think you can walk through doors?”

“What?”

“Like closed doors.” Nagisa hops off the train onto the platform. There’s a few people out in the station, and not one of them looks over at Rei striding forward in his swimsuit and goggles. They really can’t see him then. But Nagisa’s not going to worry about being seen talking to the air right now. “Do you think you can walk through them?” His wet shoes are starting to bite at his ankles as he walks. He’s going to get blisters. He sits down on the platform and pulls his socks out of his pocket, pulling them on over damp feet and jamming his feet back in his shoes. Rei has continued on regardless, so Nagisa has to jog to catch up. “What about writing with blood?”

“Would you stop being ridiculous?” Rei snaps, and Nagisa shrinks back, hands wrapping around the straps of his backpack. He tilts his head up and stares at the stars, not as visible here near the lights of homes and businesses, but still there. Reliable. After a moment, he hears Rei sigh, and then there’s a cold sensation at his shoulder.

“Eurgh,” he says, and Rei makes another exasperated noise.

“You were the one who wanted me to touch you!”

Nagisa looks down at where Rei’s hand sinks slightly into his shoulder, so only his knuckles are visible and a bit of his pinky is protruding from Nagisa’s back Like they’re the result of some sick science experiment. And he can’t feel anything but the chill of where Rei’s hand should be.

“That looks gross,” he says.

“Agreed,” Rei says with a slight quaver to his voice, and quickly draws his hand back. “Let’s limit physical contact, agreed?”

“Fine.”

Rei nods, and coughs, and looks away, hands now fiddling in front of him. “I don’t think I’ll be writing in blood anytime soon, so your question is irrelevant.”

“Would you use a marker?”

“Nagisa-kun…” Rei rubs at his temples. “Why does it matter?”

“Well, what if your parents can’t see you?”

Rei makes a sound that was probably supposed to be a laugh. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He turns around and starts walking. “How long have I been dead, anyways?”

Nagisa screws his face up and hop-skips to catch up with Rei’s longer steps. “About two weeks,” he answers, and Rei nods in acknowledgment.

They exit the train station and begin walking towards the apartment complex where Rei lives. Lived. The street vendors have all closed up, and Nagisa can feel his phone vibrating in his pocket as they pass a general store. He’d chipped the case when he’d dropped it onto the pavement by the pool, and he makes a face when he notices, but reads the text from his mom anyways. ‘Please come home. We’re worried.’

He sighs and stops to type a reply.

‘Be home soon. Srry.’

Rei has stopped a few steps ahead of him, and is looking back at Nagisa with eyebrows raised. Nagisa waves his phone. “Just telling my mom I’ll be home soon.”

“Ah.” Rei faces forward and starts walking again. Nagisa is busy jamming his phone back in his pocket when Rei asks, “So what were you doing at the pool so late anyways?”

Nagisa nearly drops his phone again. “Um…” _Completely falling apart over your death._  He can’t answer like that. “I was practicing.”

“Practicing?” Rei scoffs, as Nagisa manages to get his phone back in his pocket without further damage and hurries to catch up. “You weren’t wearing your swimsuit.”

“Well…” Nagisa has always been a good liar. It comes from having parents who like to pry into things far too much. “I had been practicing, but I got tired, and then the stars looked so pretty I just wanted to watch them.” He points upward for emphasis.

Rei grunts, but seems to accept the lie. Nagisa thinks about trying to start up conversation, but every time he opens his mouth, he just closes it once more. What’s there to say? Okay, so there a million questions he’d like to ask, but suddenly, as they walk out from the business lights and towards the apartment complexes, the questions seem silly to waste time on, when Rei is here and walking right ahead of him and wearing that same disgruntled expression Nagisa had become so fond of in such a short amount of time.

There is one important question though. “So...what do you do now?”

“Well.” Rei holds a hand out and counts down on his fingertips. “I say goodbye to my parents. Obviously they’ll be able to see me. And my brother, if he’s still here. I might go back to the school tomorrow, or walk along the beach. Just to memorize how it looked. And then I’ll return to the Netherworld, and move on into the afterlife.”

“Oh.” Nagisa trips a little on an uneven piece of pavement, and struggles to find his balance. Rei stops and reaches back to grab Nagisa’s elbow, but pulls his hand away last minute. No touching. Nagisa gets himself steady all on his own. There’s a lot of stuff he really didn’t understand in that last sentence, but he’ll let it go “So, you’re sure your parents will be able to see you?”

“Naturally.” Rei starts walking once more, up the stairs before them. “According to a man I met, we can be visible to people we have a strong bond with. My bond with you is not strong at all, so it makes sense that my parents will be able to see me easily.”

Well, he could have said it a little more tactfully, but Nagisa is able to admit he doesn’t have the best way with words sometimes either, so he doesn’t say anything.

They reach Rei’s building, and Rei turns with a slight smile. Nagisa rearranges his backpack. “So, is this the last time I see you?” Cruel, to bring Rei back to him just to take him away once more.

“Most likely.” Rei nods, and holds out a hand. “Don’t actually shake my hand,” he warns. “But imagine that we shook hands.”

Nagisa sticks out the corresponding hand and waves it up and down. Rei’s slight smile turns into a grin, and it makes Nagisa’s chest ache. How is he supposed to deal with it now? Losing Rei once only to have him back to lose all over again? Whether Rei is a ghost or a hallucination doesn’t matter. It’s unfair and awful and he wants to crawl into a ball and never leave this spot but he can’t admit any of that. Half an hour of extra time is all he had, and now Rei’s going to leave him again, and Nagisa has no right to try to stop that. It’ll just be one night’s worth of memory, easily lost or written away. “Goodbye, Rei-chan,” he says softly.

“Goodbye, Nagisa-kun,” Rei says, and turns towards the steps that lead up to his family’s apartment. Nagisa watches until Rei turns the corner and is no longer visible.

“Goodbye, Rei-chan,” he says again, twisting the straps of his backpack around and around and wondering how if this is supposed to feel like closure.

 

* * *

 

The first obstacle is the door. Rei stands in front of it, eyes narrowed and arms crossed over his chest. He can stand on the floor, as Nagisa had pointed out, and could sit on the train, but his hand had sunk into Nagisa’s shoulder like there was nothing there at all. What about doors?

He holds up a hand, and slowly brings it to the door to knock. It goes right through, and Rei yelps at the alien sensation. Not painful. Just...odd in way he’s not sure he has the vocabulary to describe. Somehow invasive, but also as if he’s incorporated the door inside himself at the same time.

Okay. So he can’t knock. What does he do? Wait for one of his parents to open the door? He’ll be out here all night.

Unless, of course, he calls them. Such a simple solution. He smirks, just a little, and then wonders why he’s so pleased he managed to outwit a door.

“Mom?” he calls, cupping his hands around his mouth and leaning in as close to the door as he can. “Mom? Dad?” He puts his ear to the door, and can hear the muffled conversation inside. They’re there. He just has to call louder. “Mom? Dad?”

But no one comes to answer the door.

But then, the man in the Netherworld has told him that parents would write off the presence of their dead child. He tries calling one more time. Nothing.

He goes back to staring at the door. Alright, time to answer some of those ghost-related questions. He shuffles up as close to the door as he can without actually touching it and pushes a finger through the wood once more. That strange, unpleasant sensation once more, not to mention the disconcerting sight of his finger disappearing into a door. Ugh.

But unless he wants to spend the night out here, he has no other choice. And once inside, he’s going to suggest his parents have their hearing checked.

Rei squares his shoulders up and breathes out slowly. And then closes his eyes tight and jumps through the door as quickly as possible.

“Eurgh!” he cries out, as soon as he’s through, and his eyes fly open. There, it’s all there! The shoes lined up against the wall, the table, the hallway to the bedrooms, the kitchen right around the corner where he can hear his parents talking. He shudders once more, trying to shake off the feeling of going through the door, and runs forward, already shouting. “Mom! Dad!” And there his parents are, sitting at the counter going over paperwork. Just like usual. “Mom!” he cries out, and his mother turns in her seat, and stands up, and looks right at him…

And turns towards the coffeepot.

Rei stops, and finishes his walk to the counter with slow, measured footsteps. “Mom?” She ignores him, and gets out the supplies to make a cup of coffee. His father continues to pour over paperwork, glasses shoved up into his hair and Rei just knows that in about five minutes when he has to look over fine-print his father will have a desperate search for his glasses before his mother gently reminds him that they’re on top of his head. And there’s his mother, with deep-sunk eyes that scream of nights spent crying, with her own glasses shoved up the same spot Rei wears his, her hair the same color as his falling out of its ponytail and across her face.

Both of them look so, so tired.

And neither of them can see him.

It’s as if everything inside him deflates all at once, every single cell collapsing into nothingness. Rei manages to make it to the wall before he slides down to the floor, staring in disbelief up at where his mother starts the coffee machine and his father starts squinting at his paper before casting a hand around the counter in a search for his glasses. Just like always. Except Rei doesn’t have a place here anymore.

Why? Why can’t his parents see him? All it took was a bond, right? And if Nagisa had been able to see him, then his parents should be able to. He barely knows Nagisa! How can he possibly see Rei when his own parents are blind to him?

A pull, the man had said. A pull, or unfinished business. How could he have more of a pull to Nagisa than to his parents? What sort of unfinished business could he possibly have with a boy he’s only known a few weeks? This is ridiculous. It’s absurd. It’s awful and wrong and not how it should be and Rei pushes himself up off the wall, trying hard to swallow down the sudden lump in his throat. “Dad…” he whispers miserably, and watches as his father’s hand pauses in its search.

“Honey?”

“Yes?” his mother answers, going to grab two mugs.

“Did you hear something?”

“No.”

“Oh.” His father frowns, and lays his hand flat on the table. “I thought I heard something.”

That’s right. His parents can still sense his presence. Even if they can’t see him. Rei sighs deeply, and closes his eyes for a moment. Alright. Things are not going as planned. But he can take the time to figure it out. He doesn’t have to return to the Netherworld yet. He doesn’t have to worry. He nods decisively to himself before walking around the counter to where his father sits. He smiles, and casts his eyes over the papers his father has been grading, covered in pen. His father shakes his head, and his hand goes up to his head. “Oh. There they are,” he mutters, and tries to detangle his glasses from his curly hair. It’s everything his dad is, in that action, and Rei holds a hand up to his nose, trying to stave off the tears pushing their way up to his eyes. “I love you Dad,” he whispers, and his voice breaks on the words. His father’s head snaps back up.

“Are you sure you can’t hear something?”

“I love you Dad,” Rei says again, and his father looks around, and looks right through Rei, and looks to his mother.

“What is it?” she asks, pouring creamer into the mugs.

“Just…” His father rubs at his forehead. “A feeling. I…”

Rei stops trying. He’s going to cry, and there’s no stopping it. His parents, who’d seen him off with sleepy goodbyes in the morning, and then never seen him alive again. He’ll never feel the warmth of their embraces again, or feel his mother run her hand through his hair. His father will never again hit him lightly over the head with a stack of paper and insist it’s time to do something other than study. He wishes so badly he’d made more time for them, those few weeks he’d had of Iwatobi High. Too busy with studying and track and the swim team. He’d missed out on late night cocoa sessions, and laughing at the hijinks his father describes happening at the university the town over where he works. Missed out on watching the ridiculous tv dramas his mother has a strange liking for.

He wants it back. He wants it back so badly his entire body aches, aches and pulls and tugs like if he tries hard enough he can do it over, can change what happened, can still be alive. But there’s nothing he can do to change that.

“I love you too, Mom,” he chokes out, and his mother stops where she’s stirring the coffee and creamer together. “I love both of you so much.”

His mother’s lips open, barely, but he can still hear her whisper. “Rei…”

No. He can’t do this. His feet slip on the floor as he starts to run, and he slips as the turns the corner, and his leg goes right through the counter. Seriously, he has to figure out how that works. But that doesn’t matter right now. He can’t be here, not in this house, not with his parents sitting there with no idea he’s there, that he’s there and that he loves them and that he’s so _so sorry_ for dying on them like that.

He hops through the front door once more and clatters down the stairs, wiping at his eyes. He’s already missing his glasses and now with the tears he can barely see anything at all. He reaches the bottom of the steps and feels concrete beneath his feet once more. Where can he go? What is he supposed to do now?

He doesn’t know what to do.

“Rei-chan.”

Rei whips around and scrubs the tears from his eyes. Nagisa is sitting there, on the concrete edge of a raised flower bed. His backpack is discarded on the ground, and he’s leaning back against the tree planted in the bed. One hand is flopped out to the side, and flashes white and bings with a new text message. Ah. He must be holding his phone.  

Rei’s glad it’s dark out. Maybe Nagisa can’t see how his face has become blotchy and pink. “Why are you still here?”

Nagisa shrugs. “I thought I would wait. Just in case.”

The phone bings again. Rei points to it. “I bet your parents are worried about you.”

Nagisa shrugs again. “Everyone seems worried about me these days.” There’s something odd in his tone of voice, something off about the way Nagisa’s holding himself, but Nagisa clears his throat and continues before Rei has time to think about it. “What happened with your parents?”

“They…” Rei sighs and wraps an arm around himself. “They couldn’t see me.”

“But I can.”

“Yes.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know.” He hasn’t been back for more than an hour and already things are too complicated for him to think through. He needs to sleep. Do ghosts even need sleep?

He’s too busy wondering about it to hear what Nagisa says at first. Nagisa gets his attention with a finger through his stomach. “Don’t do that!”

Nagisa just blinks up at him and hitches his backpack a little higher around his shoulders. “Do you want to come home with me?”

“What?”

“Do you. Want to. Come home. With me?” Nagisa lifts his eyebrows, and jerks a head up towards Rei’s apartment. “It doesn’t seem like you want to spend time with your parents that much right now. You can come home with me tonight. It’s okay.”

“I…” Rei’s eyes flicker up to the blur of the apartment building, lit with windows, smudges of brightness. No, he doesn’t want to return to the apartment. Not when he’d filled his head with imaginings of his mom and dad giving twin gasps of awed surprise to see him again, to hear them tell him they love him, they miss him, they’ll always love him and it’s okay to move on…

“Yes. Please.”

“Okay.” Nagisa turns on one heel and heads off away in the direction of his own home. “It’s not that much further.” Rei falls in behind him silently, and watches the charms attached to Nagisa’s backpack jingle as they walk.

Why in the world is Nagisa Hazuki able to see him? A bond, the man had said. A bond, a strong bond. What sort of strong bond does he have with Nagisa? A borrowed swimsuit? He doubts it. Nagisa is— _was_ a teammate. Nothing more. Not even a friend. A teammate.

So maybe it’s not a bond. Maybe it’s unfinished business? What’s his unfinished business with Nagisa?

Nagisa was the one who let him drown.

Rei’s head snaps up from Nagisa’s backpack to the back of his curly head. Yes. Nagisa had been there when Rei died. He’s the reason Rei is dead. So he’s here for vengeance? That can’t be right. It’s not like Nagisa meant for him to die.

He just allowed it to happen.

So that’s his unfinished business? To hash it out with the person who let him die? What is he supposed to do? Confront Nagisa and eventually grant forgiveness? The whole thing is absurd. He’s not even mad at Nagisa over it. Okay, maybe slightly, the more he thinks about it, but still. Annoyance mixed in with a little disappointment. But he finds it impossible to believe he’s a vengeful ghost.

They’ve left the apartments behind and wandered into a neighborhood of traditional housing. Nagisa keeps sighing with every buzz of the phone in his hand. He turns the corner and spins around to walk backwards as he talks to Rei, snapping him out of his thoughts.

“My room is the third door on the right. Just go there right away, okay? My parents are probably going to be mad at me, so I might be a while.”

Rei blinks. “Do you...have a guest bedroom?”

Nagisa gives him a puzzled look. “What’s wrong with my room?”

Rei can feel his cheeks heating up already. “It’s not...decent to share a bedroom with you.”

Nagisa stops walking and gives Rei the most bewildered look Rei thinks he’s ever seen. “Why? Rei-chan, we’ve shared a locker room. You can close your eyes when I change if you want. But I’m not some sort of pervert.”

“I-I-I wasn’t implying you are!” Rei stammers. “I simply…” He doesn’t know what he did simply. The words had just come out, dragging a blush along with them. The idea that somehow sharing a bedroom with Nagisa would feel odd.

Nagisa sniffs and turns back around. “You were really upset when I wanted to sleep with Haru-chan instead of you!” he calls back over his shoulder.

Rei can feel his face getting even hotter.

“That’s not relevant!” he says, voice loud in the silence of the night, but it’s not like anyone but Nagisa can hear.

Nagisa doesn’t answer. Just keeps strutting forward with the charms on his pack jingling.

“I wasn’t upset!”

No reply.

“More annoyed actually! Coupled with surprised!”

Still nothing.

“Okay, fine, I was upset!” His shoulders slump as he gives up, but he hears Nagisa’s footsteps stop.

“You were?”

Rei frowns. “You were the one just telling me I was!”

Nagisa hums, and bounces up onto his toes and back down. “Okay,” he says after a moment, and swings his legs back into motion. “Third door,” he reminds Rei, and points two houses down. “That’s mine. Just go straight there, okay?”

“Alright,” Rei agrees, as Nagisa turns onto the pathway leading up to the house. He’s never been to Nagisa’s house, and Nagisa has never told him much about his family, besides the horror stories about his sisters. The front door opens and lets a square of light out onto the walk, and Rei squints, trying to get a good look at whoever it is who opened the door.

“Nagisa!” a voice scolds, and then a woman is running down the walk and folding Nagisa into her arms. Curly blond hair tied back into a bun. Shorter than Nagisa even, but only just. It must be his mother. “Don’t you ever stay out this late again!” Nagisa’s mother snaps, and Nagisa lets himself be tugged inside by his collar. He catches Rei’s eye as Rei follows him through the entryway and nods down the hallway. Third door. Right.

There are shoes flung across the floor and family photos lining the wall. Rei walks through a sandal and grimaces as it passes through his foot. Nagisa himself is being shepherded off to the left, towards what must be the kitchen. Rei can already hear the raised voices as he picks his way across the hallway, counting doors as he goes.

“—so worried!”

Door one.

“—is normal but we need—”

Door two.

“—Rei is gone, Nagisa, you need to—”

Door three. Rei stops, hand automatically reaching out the handle, and slowly straightens.

His name. They’re discussing him. His first instinct is to run back to the kitchen entry to listen in, but it’s a terrible first instinct. It’s obvious enough now that Nagisa had wanted Rei to go straight to his room precisely so Rei wouldn’t hear any of this.

He needs to respect that.

He also really does not want to step through this door, but for Nagisa’s sake, he will. Just so Nagisa can be sure Rei wasn’t listening in.

Might as well get it over with. He shuts his eyes and pushes himself through the door with that same invasive sensation. Ugh. He glances around, but everything’s blurry anyway, on top of there being no lights on.

From what he can make out though, it’s a surprisingly tidy room. There’s a desk, and a bookshelf, and a bed. A dresser, and a nightside table on either side of the bed, one decorated by an alarm clock.

He’d expected something a little more chaotic. Given Nagisa’s personality, there should be clothes strewn everywhere, magazines littering the floor, and swim gear left to leak onto schoolbooks.

This room doesn’t even look lived in.

Except for the bed, he realizes, as he approaches it. The bed is unmade, the purple and pink sheets rumpled and pillows left lopsided. It’s the only thing in the room that looks like it’s been touched at all.

“Rei-chan?”

He whips around to where Nagisa stands in the door.

“I was just…”

“It’s okay. You’re staying here tonight. You can look around my room.” Nagisa shrugs his backpack off and leaves it lying by the door. “My door was closed, wasn’t it? So you can walk through stuff. That’s pretty cool!” Nagisa rubs at his shoulders where the backpack straps had been digging in. “I’m going to change now, in case you don’t want to look.”

Nagisa sounds so exhausted suddenly. Or has he sounded that way all night? Rei watches as Nagisa drags himself over to the dresser and flicks the lamp on. There are definitely some very dark circles beneath Nagisa’s eyes. And staying after practice to watch the stars?

Just what is going on with him? Rei had been too wrapped up in his immediate problem of his recent ghostliness to care to notice much.

Nagisa pulls his sweatervest off, and Rei averts his eyes. He hears the soft thump of clothes hitting the floor, and the slide of drawers. “You can look now, Rei-chan,” Nagisa tells him, and Rei looks back to where Nagisa, now dressed in a t-shirt and shorts and kneeling on the floor, is folding his uniform up and placing it inside a dresser drawer.

“Nagisa-kun…” he starts, and Nagisa looks up at him with eyebrows raised. But Rei doesn’t even know how to bring the subject up. “Nevermind,” he says, and glances around the room with hands across his chest.

“Do you think ghosts can sleep on a bed?” Nagisa asks, and Rei can feel his face going hot again, which is ridiculous.

“What? Why?”

“Because you can have my bed.” Nagisa gestures towards the rumpled sheets and comforter. He’s speaking quietly now, and Rei can’t be sure if it’s because Nagisa is tired or because he doesn’t want his family to overhear.

But taking Nagisa’s bed from him? Rei can’t do something like that. He shakes his hands out in front of him. “No, no! I couldn’t!” When Nagisa opens his mouth to undoubtedly argue, Rei places his hands on his hips and stretches his body upwards. The height difference between them has to hold at least some authority, especially with Nagisa still kneeling on the floor. “You need sleep, Nagisa-kun. And I don’t even know if I need sleep. It would be ridiculous for me to take the bed.”

Nagisa just stares at him for a second, and then nods. “Alright. I’m going to wash.” He stands and turns back towards the door, bare feet padding across the floorboards. He opens the door, and glances back at Rei. “Do you think you will have to sleep?”

“Go wash up, Nagisa-kun,” Rei orders softly, and Nagisa disappears out the door. Rei does want to sleep. He’s exhausted too. Completely exhausted, and, honestly, he would give a lot to be able to _not think_ for a couple of hours. He doesn’t want to think about the way his parents’ eyes had gone right through him.

But they had sensed him. He knows that. If he goes back, maybe, he can make some sort of peace with them. Let them know that he’s alright. And then it’s back up to the Netherworld with him. His business down here will be finished.

He doesn’t need to worry about why Nagisa is able to see him. It’s some fluke, obviously. He has no intention of haunting Nagisa over letting him die. There’s no unfinished business between them at all.

Okay, well if the matter happens to come up, he might have to ask why Nagisa wasn’t able to save him. In a non-accusatory way. Maybe slightly accusatory. Slightly. Because, alright, he can admit that maybe he’s a little bitter over it.  He’ll ask. Just ask what Nagisa had done wrong.

Well, that’s easy then. He simply talks things out with Nagisa, allows for mutual understanding, and then bam. He’s gone. No need to stick around after that. That’s all it’s going to take. No more unfinished business.

Hell, maybe he can do it right now. Right when Nagisa gets back to his room.

_‘Nagisa-kun, it’s sort of your fault I died. Because you didn’t save me.’_

_‘I know, Rei-chan, and I’m sorry.’_

_‘You are forgiven.’_

And then he’s out of here.

When the door opens back up, he turns with the words already on his tongue, but the expression on Nagisa’s face stops him. Actually, all of Nagisa stops him.

“Have you been crying?” he blurts out before tact can sew his mouth shut. Nagisa frowns, and rubs at his eyes.

“I’m just tired.” He goes over to the lamp on the dresser, and pauses with his hand on the switch. Rei takes the chance to rake his eyes down Nagisa’s body. He hadn’t noticed before, not with the bulk of Nagisa’s uniform, but he’s looking awfully thin. In a rather sickly way. And with his face scrubbed clean and hair pushed up out of his eyes, it only accentuates the exhaustion written into every line.

He looks terrible.

He looks worse than Rei, and Rei is _dead_.

“Nagisa-kun…”

“Would you like me to leave the light on?” Nagisa asks, voice drowning out Rei’s own.

Rei swallows, and looks away from Nagisa’s shadowed eyes. “It’s alright. Turn it off. You sleep.”

Nagisa nods, turns off the light, and goes to crawl into his bed by the soft light let in through the window. He wraps the sheets and duvet around himself like a cocoon, hidden to the world.

“If you do need sleep, you can take half the bed,” he mumbles from within his cocoon, and Rei makes a soft sound of acknowledgement. Nagisa doesn’t say anything more, and after a few moments Rei walks over to the bookcase. Swimming magazines, their spines still fresh and new. More worn-out books, obviously very loved over the years. A few movies, mostly horror it looks like, when he gets his face real close and squints to read the titles. Maybe Rei will ask Nagisa to show him some, so he can disprove all the stereotypes presented. Just because he’s a ghost doesn’t mean he’s going to start rattling chains and sucking people in through the television screen.

He turns away from the bookshelf and looks back towards the bed. “Nagisa-kun?” he whispers, but there’s no answer. He hadn’t expected one. He knows how quickly Nagisa can fall asleep.

He ends up sitting on the floor against the foot of the bed, staring at his own feet. He thumps one heel down on the floor. Solid. So why is he able to walk through doors? Why can’t he touch Nagisa?

Maybe it’s a matter of willpower. He thumps his foot down on the floor. Solid. He thumps again, and then wonders if anyone but Nagisa could hear it. Best to stop stamping, then. But he certainly isn’t putting any willpower into wanting the floor to support him. It just is.

So, maybe it has it has something to do with expectations. A door could be difficult to knock upon given even the slightest disbelief it would be. And Nagisa had been asking Rei on the train about walking through doors. So had he gone to knock on the door to his apartment with a slight worry that it wouldn’t work? Probably. But the ground. The ground he trusts in. He’d never even considered sinking through the floor. And he couldn’t touch Nagisa because everything he’d heard from the man in the Netherworld had said so. In fact, it’s a miracle Nagisa can even see him at all. Being able to touch him would be some sort of miracle.

Other than that, what has he made contact with? The train, of course, and walls. Both solid. But then he’d accidentally walked through a shoe in the hallway because he hadn’t noticed it was in the way. Awareness? Expectations? Willpower? A combination of the three or something different altogether?

Well, mostly he’s just left with questions, but he’ll come back to that problem later. The next thing to think about is whether he is able to sleep. Do ghosts need anything that living humans do?

Air. Humans need air. Rei himself had once needed air, which is why he’s in this mess in the first place. He’s been breathing in and out this whole time, because it’s what he’s always done, but does he actually need to?

He watches five minutes go past on Nagisa’s bedside clock with mouth clamped shut and fingers pinched tight around his nose before finally admitting that he doesn’t actually need to breathe anymore. And he can’t feel a pulse in his neck or his palm. His lungs don’t work. His heart doesn’t work. He’s going to assume that he doesn’t need food either then. Doesn’t even know how he would eat food even if he did need it. Maybe ghosts are just perpetually hungry and that’s why there are all those horror stories. Ghosts in search of snacks. But he doesn’t feel hungry. So maybe all his internal organs are just shut down. Or not even there anymore. He has no idea how to find out about ghost anatomy. He hopes it’s all just shut down. It’ll be easier to deal with.

So, considering he doesn’t need air or food, does he need sleep? He would like to need sleep. Not that Nagisa’s floor is the most comfortable surface for trying it out, but he’d been the one who’d insisted so he can’t complain now.

He lies down and stares up at the ceiling. His eyes feel heavy and the weight of the encounter with his parents still hangs heavy in his chest, and he wants so badly to lose himself to sleep. He listens to the sound of Nagisa’s breaths. In and out. Inhale and exhale.

It’s not really doing much good helping him sleep, but lying stretched out on the floor actually feels sort of nice. He can just stay here, and not have to move, not have to think as long as he keeps his brain busy on trivial things, like the constant rhythm of Nagisa’s breathing. He closes his eyes, and sighs deeply, letting himself settle into the floor, muscles relaxing. Muscles. He still has muscles. Or at least the sensation of muscles. If he’s not actually a physical being but a reimagining of his corporeal self, does he still have anything inside him at all? He’s capable of thought though, so does that mean he has a brain?

He definitely has a mind that’s spinning with all the questions and contradictions his ghostliness is bringing up. He’ll never get to sleep if doesn’t stop thinking.

Nagisa’s breathing. Yes. Keep listening to that. The steady in and out of his gentle breaths. So maybe the floor is sort of hard. So maybe he’s stuck haunting Nagisa Hazuki for unknown reasons. So maybe his parents couldn’t see him. Here, in the darkness of Nagisa’s room, it’s safe.

He must fall asleep at some point, because it’s Nagisa who wakes him up. “Rei-chan! Rei-chan…”

Rei sits bolt upright and looks over the edge of the bed. “What is it?”

“Rei-chan!” Nagisa calls again, almost in a sob, and Rei actually clambers onto the bed, sure Nagisa’s appendix has burst or some similar disaster.

“What’s wrong Nagisa-kun? Nagisa-kun?” He manages to locate the end of the cocoon and stares down at Nagisa’s closed eyes and twisted face. “Nagisa-kun?”

“Rei...Rei...Rei-chan…” Nagisa whimpers out, and Rei falls back into the mattress. Nagisa is still asleep.

Nagisa is still asleep and is dreaming about him.

Nightmares.

“Nagisa-kun…” he whispers, suddenly feeling very weak in the knees and elbows. Nightmares. He doesn’t know how to handle nightmares.

And certainly not when he’s the starring character.

Should he wake Nagisa up? Or would that just make everything worse?

He doesn’t even know how he would handle it, waking Nagisa up and having to explain why.

He swallows hard, and turns slowly, shuffling to go sit on the edge of the bed. Behind him, Nagisa continues to whimper his name and curl himself tighter into the bedsheets, occasionally crying out, not loud enough for someone to come check on him, but it still makes Rei flinch.

Does Nagisa know he calls Rei’s name aloud at night? Somehow, Rei doubts it, or Nagisa wouldn’t have wanted Rei to stay in his room.

Nagisa twists himself tighter into the sheets, still muttering to himself, and finally—finally—settles down about an hour later. Rei sits on the edge of the bed the whole time, hands fiddling in his lap as he worries his bottom lip between his teeth and feels intensely guilty about having even considered confronting Nagisa.

Just how badly has Nagisa taken his death?

Rei doesn’t end up sleeping anymore that night. He doesn’t even attempt it after that. He sits, and he thinks, and tries to remember the last moments of his life, with Nagisa’s arms trying to tug him above the surface as Rei panicked and pushed Nagisa below the waves himself, a death grip around Nagisa’s neck. Nagisa had been yelling his name every time his head popped up above water, the same way he whispers Rei’s name in his nightmares now, and his hands wrapped around Rei’s chest had never weakened.

Haru had saved Makoto, and that small bitter thought had been festering in the back of his mind, but Makoto knew how to be saved. He knew not to panic and push Haru beneath the water in a desperate attempt to breathe.

Okay, so maybe Nagisa is partially to blame, but that doesn’t mean Rei wants him to suffer over it! Sure, a little bit of grieving would be appropriate, he thinks, but he’d hated the way Nagisa had whimpered his name. He doesn’t want to hear that again.

Rei doesn’t move until the morning light begins to filter through the windows, and jumps a little when the alarm clock goes off, playing some sort of electronic music.

The pile of blankets on the bed groans.

“Nagisa-kun…” Rei turns and leans forward, until he can spy Nagisa’s pale and creased face hidden in the duvet. “It’s time to get up.”

Nagisa opens his eyes a crack. “You’re still here.”

“Yes.”

“Not a hallucination?”

“No.”

And then Nagisa just closes his eyes once more. “I’m still tired.”

Of course he is. How could he feel rested with those nightmares going on? Rei has to be firm though. “It’s still time to get up.”

Nagisa sighs dramatically, but unrolls himself anyways. His bedhead is truly impressive. He yawns and rubs at hollowed eyes. “Gonna go shower before Mizuki and Chiasa get in there.” He propels himself off the bed towards the door. Rei glances back at the mess of sheets and thinks that the reason the rest of the room is immaculate is probably because Nagisa has been spending an awful lot of time hiding beneath his blankets. He rubs at his face and stands, going over to the bookshelf once more. It’s easier to see now, even without his glasses. Swimming magazines, and comic books, and books with well-loved covers.

And some self-help pamphlets stuffed in one corner. Rei only needs to glance at one title to know what these are about. Coping with loss.

He turns away from the bookshelf as Nagisa returns to his room, one towel wrapped around his waist and another tossed over his shoulders. “What are you looking at, Rei-chan?” he asks as he takes the towel and rubs it vigorously through his hair, sending water droplets spraying everywhere.

“Just checking out your book collection,” Rei says quickly, stepping away from the bookshelf.

“Oh” Nagisa drops the towel to the floor and pads back over to his dresser. Rei looks out the window as Nagisa pulls on his uniform.

“So…” Nagisa says brightly, as he grabs his discarded towels and folds them over one arm. “What’s your plan for today?”

Rei blinks, bites at his lip, and tilts his head to one side with a shrug of the opposite shoulder. “Um...walk around town I suppose.”

Nagisa nods. “Closure, right? And then you’ll...move on?”

“That’s what should happen, yes.” Rei is beginning to feel increasingly uneasy about the whole idea though. Things are suddenly feeling much more complicated.

It’s Nagisa. It’s always Nagisa, bursting into his life—or afterlife in this case—and changing everything.

“So...will you come say goodbye?” Nagisa asks, voice sounding a little hopeful that completely contrasts with the blank expression on his face.

Rei nods decisively. “Yes. Yes, I promise I will come say goodbye to you before I go.”

And Nagisa smiles.

That’s what had been wrong with him, Rei realizes with a jolt. Ever since he found Nagisa by the pool last night, he’s not seen a single smile.

“Thank you, Rei-chan,” Nagisa says, and folds his pajamas up into little squares to fit inside his drawers. But the bed still goes unmade. Nagisa picks his backpack up with a grunt and slings it over his shoulder. A bit belatedly, Rei thinks that any homework Nagisa might have had last night most certainly did not get done. “So, do ghosts sleep?” Nagisa asks, hand on the doorknob.

Rei nods. “Yes. Yes, we…”

Despite staying up practically all night on the edge of Nagisa’s bed, Rei doesn’t feel tired at all. “I think I can sleep, but I don’t need to.”

“Oh. That’s cool.” And then Nagisa is opening the door. He pokes his head back in three seconds later. “My family is all eating breakfast right now, just to warn you.”

Rei nods, and Nagisa disappears once more. He can hear the babble of voices from the hallway, and then slightly louder voices accompanied by Nagisa’s own. Almost like an argument.

But no. It’s not right to listen in. Rei goes back to looking at the collection of books. His fingers brush against the goggles dangling around his neck. The prescription would probably help him see, but he’d look ridiculous walking around with his goggles on. But then again, the only one who can see him looking ridiculous is Nagisa, and Nagisa is out the door.

Actually, there he goes. Rei catches movement out the window and watches as Nagisa heads off towards the station, feet dragging as he walks until he’s hidden by the house over. No breakfast then? And he doesn’t think Nagisa would have eaten last night either, not if he spent most of it sitting in the dark by the pool.

Rei tugs the goggles from around his neck on over his eyes and sighs in relief as everything snaps into focus. Mostly focus. It’s not exactly the right prescription. But close enough, even if everything is now tinted blue.

He waits until the sounds from the Hazuki kitchen before poking his head out the door. Only to have someone to walk right through it.

He jerks backwards and falls over, clutching at his head. It feels fuzzy and awful and he hates it. Like his whole head is made of static, yes, that’s a good way to describe it. Not painful, but wrong. He crawls back to the door and glares at the offending girl. One of Nagisa’s sisters, no doubt. She’s frowning though, and rubbing at her arms. Of course. He feels chilly to her. Okay, new rule for himself. No sticking his head out of doors before checking both ways first.

He’s still rubbing at his forehead as he heads for the front door. Nagisa’s mother is cleaning up the counters best she can when Rei looks in, and she looks almost as tired as Nagisa does. A man, whom Rei assumes is Nagisa’s father, rushes into the hallway, feet skidding on the floor, and passes Rei who squishes himself up against the wall. Nagisa’s father tugs his shoes on and straightens his tie. “Bye dear!” he calls as he opens the door.

“I won’t be home until late so you need to take care of dinner!” she calls back, and he makes a small sound of acknowledgement before heading out the door.

Rei darts forward to try to get through the door before it closes, but Nagisa’s father ends up just closing it halfway through him. Rei sighs, and looks down at where his body is sticking half in and half out of the door. Maybe he’ll get used to the sight. Maybe this would have been easier if he were more ethereal looking. But no. He can tell that he’s not completely solid in appearance, but it’s a close thing. Asides from the fact he’s being bisected from a door, he can barely tell this form from his body when he was alive. Really, he should be taking notes to bring to whoever is in charge of this whole process in order to enact some changes. And being able to switch clothes should be at the top of the list.

But the air is warm and the smell of the sea is strong. It’ll be beautiful along the coast, especially early now while all the kids are in school.

Closure. Yes. His final goodbyes. Rei nods, and steps out of the door. He’s going to get this all taken care of. It’ll work out.

It has to.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm fudging a few details about canon for the sake of the story, sorry about that!  
> Thank you very much for reading! Kudos and comments are always appreciated, or you can come talk to me directly at my tumblr account @pollyperks!  
> Next update will be next Monday!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the wonderful comments and kudos on the last chapter! It's super appreciated!  
> note: I chose to use Kou instead of Gou because I wish the show had let her keep her preferred name. Sorry if that's confusing or anything.

Nagisa spends most of class doodling in the margins of his notebook. A month ago maybe the teacher would have snapped at him, but doodling is actually a step up from lying across the desk and staring towards the window lifelessly, so nothing gets said.

Kou snags him in the hallway before he can sneak off to eat lunch alone, so he ends up sitting between Haru and Makoto up on the roof. Kou is chatting away happily, and it’s so obvious she’s waiting for his response after every sentence. So obvious that Haru and Makoto are watching him from the corner of their eyes, and he’s so tired of being treated like this. Like something breakable.

But that’s the thing. Yesterday, he’d already been broken, dangling his legs in the pool while he stared up at the stars wondering how anything could possibly hurt so much. And today he’d woken up with Rei’s ghost sitting on the edge of his bed and he’s not really sure how to bring that up as a topic of conversation.

 _So...uh...ha ha, so do any of you believe in ghosts? I’m asking for a friend. Who is a ghost. Actually, it’s Rei-ch_ —yeah he’s not even going to try.

Rei should be walking around town right now. Nagisa nibbles a bit on the end of his Iwatobi bread. Achieving closure, a word that Rei seems very fond of using. Nagisa is considering just skipping the afternoon when Makoto starts talking about what they need to get done at practice. Oh, right. Swimming.

They’re still missing a fourth member, and Nagisa knows that the other three have been desperately searching for one. He doesn’t particularly care. He’d wanted so badly to swim with Haru and Makoto again in high school, and had felt so empty without swimming in his life during middle school, but now even with Haru and Makoto beside him, he feels even emptier at the idea of swimming with someone who isn't Rei. It should be Rei there with them in the pool, with his tendency to grab at his glasses even when he’s not wearing them and mutter quietly to himself as if taking mental notes as he concentrates hard on Makoto and Haru’s lessons in technique. No one else belongs there. No one.

Except the thought doesn’t make him hurt deep in his chest in quite the same way today. Because Rei is here and back and strutting around Iwatobi with his swimsuit and goggles and only Nagisa can see him. So far. Maybe the other members of the swim team can see him. Nagisa should check, because he has no idea what he’s supposed to be doing and it would be nice to be able to spread the bewilderment around a little. But Rei is here, and apparently not a hallucination, and that is really shaking up Nagisa’s grieving process. He doesn’t think there are going to be any pamphlets to help with this one.

He eats half of his bread, which is about half a bread more than he’s been eating lately, and doesn’t miss the significant look Haru and Makoto share over his head. He might be short, but he’s not completely unobservant.

Nagisa goes through afternoon classes feeling well enough to even try to pay attention, but he’s been ignoring lessons for two weeks now and he gets lost almost immediately, so he returns to doodling in his notebooks. His parents are going to be so disappointed—at the very least—when they get his exam scores, but that’s a far away worry, not worth thinking about just yet.

When classes are over, he stuffs everything into his pack, not even bothering to jot down the reading assignment, and makes his way through busy hallways to the club room. Maybe he’ll be able to leave practice a little early today. He doesn’t want Rei wandering out by his own for too long. Or sitting there alone in case he tried talking to his parents again. He’d seemed so upset by it last night, and Nagisa doesn’t want him to have too much time to think it over, especially since Rei is definitely the type to think way too much into things. But Nagisa imagines not being able to be seen by your own parents has got to hurt.

He wonders how he would have felt, if he had been the one to die. What would it be like, if his parents couldn’t see him but Rei could? Confusing, probably. Hurtful. He definitely shouldn’t leave Rei alone for too long.

“Mako-chan?” he calls as he pushes open the door to the club room. “I have to—”

And there’s Rei, leaning against the cubbies with arms crossed and eyebrow raised.

Makoto and Haru both jerk their heads up at Nagisa’s little yelp of surprise. “Nagisa, are you alright?” Makoto asks.

“Y-yeah, Mako-chan!” Nagisa manages, as he watches Rei make an apologetic face and straighten up from the cubbies. “I’m going to...going to...over there. Don’t wait up!”

Something he’s said plenty of times by now, and they’re going to assume he’s crying again, because his swimming times might be beginning to suffer but he’s become a national champ at crying. He scoots over to where Rei is standing and drops his backpack heavily on the floor, rummaging around with the books to make noise. Rei squats down until he’s on Nagisa’s level.

“I’m sorry for startling you,” he says, “I was near the school and I thought I would come see…”

“It’s fine, it’s fine,” Nagisa tells him quickly, glancing over his shoulder at where Makoto and Haru are still getting changed. “How was walking around? And saying goodbye to...stuff?”

Rei shrugs. Nagisa has to smile, just a little lift in the corner of his mouth. At least here, Rei doesn’t look out of place in his swimsuit. He’s got his goggles on now, strapped on over his eyes. He must really miss his glasses to walk around wearing those goggles outside the pool because it really does look slightly ridiculous. “It wasn’t as meaningful as I thought it would be. I don’t think that was what my coming back is supposed to be about.”

Nagisa tilts his head to one side. “What?”

“You alright, Nagisa?” Haru interrupts from the other side of the room, as he and Makoto head towards the door, and Nagisa waves a hand at them.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!”

When he turns back to Rei, the other boy is watching Makoto and Haru. Nagisa can’t see his eyes because of the goggles, but there’s a crease around the corner of his mouth that suggests unhappiness.

“Mako-chan and Haru-chan can’t see you?” he asks the obvious, and Rei shakes his head.

“And not Kou-san either. You’re the only one.”

Nagisa bites at his lip as he removes his sweater and shirt. “That’s weird.” Rei just hums. Nagisa straightens up as his head pops out of his sweater and shakes his head, hair all staticky. “Okay, cover your eyes, Rei-chan. In case you still don’t want me changing in front of you.” He goes for the button of his pants without waiting for an answer, but Rei turns towards the wall as Nagisa changes into his swimsuit, and then turns back as Nagisa grabs his goggles and swimcap.

“Nagisa-kun?” he calls as Nagisa starts towards the pool, and Nagisa looks back to him. Rei reaches up and pulls his goggles down to his neck so Nagisa can see his eyes, and he’s frowning a little when he takes a few steps forward. “Are you…?”

Nagisa waits for the rest of the sentence, but it doesn’t come. “Am I what?”

Rei frowns at him a few seconds more, and Nagisa is beginning to wonder what he could have possibly done wrong now, but then Rei shakes his head. “It’s nothing. I’m sorry.”

Nagisa studies him for a few seconds before writing it off. “Okay. Are you going to watch?”

Rei nods, and Nagisa runs off towards the pool.

He watches Rei out of the corner of his eye the whole time he stands listening first to Kou and then Makoto talk about practice schedules and the desperate need to find a fourth member. He hopes Rei doesn’t feel bad about that. It’s not his fault that he died.

Eventually, they get into the pool, and Nagisa loses himself to the water. He’s had such a complicated relationship with water since Rei died. He should hate it. Fear it. Remember the way he had hacked water up onto the ground until he thought he would throw up, remember the way Rei’s mouth was filled with it when Nagisa tried to blow air through into his lungs. Remember it dragging them down towards the bottom, clinging to his arms and legs and pulling, pulling, pulling. And maybe he’ll feel that way about the ocean now. He knows he’s been avoiding going near the shore.

But here, in the pool, has been maybe the one place he’s felt somewhat at peace. He can just hide his eyes behind his goggles and focus on cutting through the water, the spring of his legs when he makes the turn, the reach of his arms as he reaches the final stretch. The water is all around him, comforting and cool and sparkling light blue, and nothing like the dark ocean water in his nightmares. And it’s normal. It’s what he does on automatic. It’s easy to get lost in.

Every once in a while, he glances up to the edge of the pool where Rei sits, dipping his feet in the water. He wonders if that feels just as odd as Nagisa touching him, or if the water feels comforting to Rei as well. Rei gives him a little wave when he sees Nagisa watching him, and when he’s given a break, Nagisa swims over to where Rei sits and sets his arms up on the sides right next to him. “Hi,” he whispers, pushing his goggles up.

“Hello,” Rei whispers back, his own goggles still dangling around his neck.

“You don’t have to whisper, Rei-chan, they can’t hear you.”

“Yes, but if I don’t whisper you’ll forget to. You know they can see you talking to the air, right?”

Nagisa glances over his shoulder and catches Kou’s eyes before she quickly looks away at her clipboard. “I’ll tell them it’s breathing exercises.”

Rei gives him a skeptical look. “Breathing exercises?”

Nagisa nods, before slipping off the wall and dunking himself underwater. He emerges a few seconds later, and wipes the water from his eyes as he inhales deeply. “One. Two. Three. Exhale. See?” he says. “Breathing exercises.” Rei shakes his head and scrunches his nose up in a smile, and Nagisa grins back. Always worth it, doing something to make Rei smile.

“Nagisa?” Makoto calls from the other side of the pool. “Can you come over here?”

“Bye Rei-chan,” Nagisa whispers before turning away and swimming back to where the others are waiting. He purposefully avoids Kou’s gaze the entire rest of practice, until he’s under the showers and she heads out.

“I can lock up,” he tells Makoto as soon as they head towards the club room. Makoto gives him the same weary look.

“How late will you be staying?”

“Just five minutes!” Nagisa holds up his hand, fingers spread wide. “I just have some stuff to clean up.”

Makoto sighs, but nods, and Nagisa bustles around in the corner as he waits for Rei to make his way in from the pool. He changes quickly, and can still feel his skin damp beneath his clothes, but it doesn’t matter.

“Bye, Haru-chan, Mako-chan,” he calls as the two exit, and then it’s just him and Rei, leaning against the doorway.

This is how it should be. The four of them. Except Nagisa screwed up and now that can never happen.

But he won’t talk about that in front of Rei.

“We need to figure out a way to talk to each other without you looking suspicious,” Rei says, as he steps over the towel Nagisa has abandoned on the floor.

“Ooh!” Nagisa slides down onto the floor and pulls his backpack open. He’s just sort of been stuffing everything in there for the last while, so it’s more of a mess than usual. His grasping hands latch around his foreign languages book. He tugs it up into the light, poor thing, probably hasn’t seen anything but the bottom of his pack for a month. “We could learn a foreign language and I can talk to you that way!” He feels more excited about this than he’s felt in weeks. It feels sort of strange, feeling this sort of aliveness again. Nagisa flips through a couple of pages, decides those are all too boring, and tilts his head back to think. “Mmm. Welsh!” He turns to Rei with a grin. “Let’s learn Welsh. Only like five people people in the world speak it anymore.”

Rei sighs, fingers already going to where his glasses should be, and Nagisa’s grin softens. This is it. What they should have had. This easy banter back and forth of teasing and admonition, this game between the two of them. It comes so easily already, even when they’ve only known each other for such a short amount of time. This—this here—this has to be part of what he was mourning. What he and Rei could have been.

“Nagisa-kun, there are more than five people who speak Welsh, and—”

“Gaelic then!”

“Speaking Gaelic to yourself isn’t going to look any better than speaking to yourself in Japanese.”

He has a point. Nagisa sticks out his lower lip and slowly returns the book to his backpack. “It would still be cool to learn Gaelic,” he mutters as he does up the straps.

“Then you are welcome to do that in your spare time.”

Nagisa makes a face and slings the backpack onto his shoulders as he stands up. Rei’s no fun. “So how was your day then?”

Rei shrugs. “I…” He sighs, and starts towards the doorway. Nagisa is about to dart ahead of him to open the door but Rei just walks through it. Nagisa stands there, gaping, until Rei sticks his head back through the door, and Nagisa leaps backward. It looks like a hunter has Rei’s head mounted through the door and it’s freaking him out.

“What?” Rei asks after a moment.

Nagisa gathers himself, breathing in deep. “That’s just the first time I’ve seen you do that!” He eyes the door. “I thought you said touching stuff makes you feel weird.”

“It does,” Rei says, and steps back into the club room. “But I’m forcing myself to get used to it. It does get easier, actually.”

Nagisa hitches his backpack up a little higher and opens the door. “So, if you can walk through doors, how come you don’t fall through the floor?” He turns, and makes sure the club room is all closed up and locked for when Makoto comes tomorrow.

“I believe it’s a matter of expectations. And belief, I supposed. I believe and expect that the floor will hold me, but there was doubt in my mind whether I’d be able to touch a door and I end up reaching through it. After that, if I think of an object as permeable, it is so.”

Rei opens his mouth to no doubt go on, but Nagisa cuts him off. “So if you think of it as something you can walk through, you’re able to? Sounds simple enough.”

Rei nods. “I just need to be sure to not overthink things when approaching things like stairs.”

But Rei overthinks everything. Nagisa gives him a horrified look. “What, or you’ll fall through them?”

Rei nods again, either not noticing or ignoring Nagisa’s facial expression. “I think so. But I think it’s mostly psychological. As long as I recognize the stairs as something I can walk on, it’ll be fine. I probably wouldn’t have been able to walk through doors if you hadn’t been asking me about it last night…”

“Oh. Sorry.” Nagisa grimaces to himself. Of course, there he goes making Rei’s afterlife more difficult too.

“No, no!” Rei cries, and Nagisa stares up at him. Rei’s face is all lit up and probably happier than Nagisa’s seen him since he appeared. “This is exciting! Testing the limits of paranormal existence! Discovering my abilities and the extent of them! I might have to have you type everything up, but this is a wonderful opportunity to explore the logic behind hauntings!”

“Type everything up?” Nagisa repeats, already doubtful.

“Well, yes, of course we’d want to publish our findings…”

“Rei-chan,” Nagisa says very slowly, just to make sure Rei understands, “I am a sixteen year old boy currently failing almost all my school subjects. I don’t think anyone is going to want to publish anything we write.”

Rei blinks down at him a few times, and then visibly deflates. “You’re right.”

He looks so utterly defeated that Nagisa feels bad for pointing it out. He casts around for another topic of conversation. “So...where did you go today?” That’s good. That’s neutral.

“Oh.” Rei shrugs. “I walked around town. I took the train and went to see all the shops.”

Nagisa lowers his voice as they approach the train station and head amongst groups of people waiting for the next train. “And did it make you feel better?”

Rei frowns a little, and opens his mouth, but just closes it again after a moment. “Irrelevant. Anyways.” He coughs, and looks up and away from Nagisa, and Nagisa frowns. How is it in any way irrelevant? Isn’t saying goodbye to everything basically why Rei is here? But he won’t push it. Not if Rei doesn’t want to talk about it. And Rei is already moving on. “I decided to come to the school and was just in time to see the swim team.”

“Yeah.” Nagisa stops right near where the train will come, and bounces up and down on his feet. “We’re...um…” There are a great number of words that would fit in there.

“Missing a fourth member,” Rei says with a nod, even though that hadn’t been what Nagisa had been about to say at all. “I’m sorry about that.”

Nagisa gapes at him, and settles back firmly on the ground. How could Rei ever…?

“Don’t you go saying you’re sorry!” he orders, way louder than he should have, and he can see the heads turning to stare at him. Yelling at the air. But right now, he doesn’t care. “Never ever, you hear me?”

Rei takes a half-step back and stares down at Nagisa with wide eyes. “I...I…” he starts, but then the next train is arriving, and they get buffeted inside. Nagisa ends up clinging to a pole with Rei standing right close to him, occasionally wincing when someone’s elbow goes right through his chest. Which still looks really, really weird.

But it’s crowded enough Nagisa figures he can talk to Rei without anyone caring. He bounces up onto his toes and back again, biting at his lip before finally looking out the window. “I was a little worried actually, this morning when you said you were going to find your closure. What if you found it and just disappeared? Then I wouldn’t be able to see you again.” He tries to say it airily as possible, but can’t tell how well it works.

“I think my closure has something much more to it than saying goodbye to the town,” Rei says. And then clears his throat. “And honestly I am feeling very disappointed in whoever is organizing this whole death business! The fact I have to embarrass myself walking around in just a swimsuit…!”

“I’m the only one who can see you, Rei-chan,” Nagisa reminds him, once again letting the abrupt change of subject go. Nagisa can recognize the fact that he is a master of changing subjects, of manipulating conversations to go the way he needs them to. Not out of anything malicious. It’s simply something he’s picked up, from living in his household, with his parents and their tendency to pry. Rei, on the other hand, is terrible at it. If they’d switched places and Nagisa was the ghost following Rei around, all of Japan would have known by lunchtime. The whole world by now, probably.

But Nagisa lets Rei go on complaining about the swimsuit and his impaired vision. So Rei has something he doesn’t want Nagisa to know about. And more than anything, Nagisa doesn’t want Rei to find out just how badly he’s taken Rei’s death. He felt guilty enough grieving like that while Rei’s parents had so much more of a right. He can’t stand the thought of showing that side of himself to Rei.

So here they are, both holding secrets tight to their chest. Nagisa’s will be significantly harder to keep though. If Rei had been in the kitchen last night while Nagisa’s parents berated and fussed over him coming home so late, that would be it. But he’s going to be careful. He doesn’t want Rei to find out just how much he’s been hurting. It would be so wrong, when Rei is the one who died and truly lost everything. It’s Nagisa’s fault Rei drowned, so it’s also his fault that he’s suffering now.

And besides, Rei doesn’t need to know about any of that. He’s here to say goodbye to his parents and then head on to eternal peace. Nagisa would just become a complication.

He’s not going to become a complication.

“I think…” Rei clears his throat and starts again, louder this time. “I think tonight I’ll stay with my parents.”

Nagisa nods, and forces a half-smile. “Yeah, I think that’s good.” And, because the idea of Rei up and disappearing on him is becoming a constant stressor at the back of his mind, he adds, “Will I see you again?”

Rei stares down at him, brow furrowed and mouth a hard line but eyes softer than Nagisa can ever remember seeing them. Maybe it’s the lack of glasses. Nagisa shuffles where he stands, and looks away. “Nagisa-kun,” Rei says after a minute of Nagisa intently inspecting the pole he’s holding onto. “I promise that I will say goodbye to you.”

Nagisa risks a glance upward, but Rei is still looking at him with those eyes and he can feel his cheeks going pink. “Yeah?”

“Yes,” Rei says firmly, staring straight at him. “I promise that before I leave, I will say goodbye to you.”

He’s probably turning even pinker now. Nagisa ducks his head and starts fiddling with the straps of his backpack. “Okay,” he mutters, after a moment, and hears Rei give a fond chuckle.

“This might be the first time I’ve seen you embarrassed, Nagisa-kun.”

“Shut up!” Nagisa tells him, but he’s already smiling and Rei is laughing and Nagisa aches as he smiles because when Rei leaves it’s probably going to hurt even more than before. He should stop this now, stop himself from falling all over again and growing used to that smile and laugh and unbelievable dorkisms. But it feels so good to stand beside Rei and pretend that he is really wholly there and not dead and Nagisa won’t ever have to say goodbye to him, not permanently.

It’s alright, feeling embarrassed, if it’s Rei making him blush.

He thinks there are a lot of things that are alright, as long as it’s Rei right there with him.

Rei gets off a stop before Nagisa’s, claiming he wants to explore this part of town a little bit more, and stands at the station and waves goodbye through the window. Nagisa wiggles a hand in a little wave back.

There are too many things he has to think about. He waits for the train to reach his stop and pushes his hands into his pockets, moving on automatic towards his house. He thinks he’s pretty much established that this is not some elaborate hallucination and Rei really is back to haunt him. A friendly haunting, but still a haunting. And Nagisa is the only one who can see or hear him. So far. But if Rei’s parents couldn’t see him, Nagisa doubts anyone else will be able to.

So why can he?

Is it because it’s his fault Rei died?

This would be a fitting sort of punishment, if that’s what it’s meant to be. Give Rei back to him, make him laugh and smile and feel like he’s actually going to be okay again, and then snatch him away. It’s only been a day since Rei returned and already he feels so much lighter on the inside. Give it another few days, a week even, and he’s not even sure how he’ll make it through losing Rei a second time.

But the strange thing is that he still wants Rei to stay. He wants him to stay so badly, wants to get on his knees and beg for Rei to stop searching for his closure and just...be. Be here. No matter how much it’ll hurt later, he wants Rei to stay beside him, for just a little longer.

He’s pathetic.

“I’m home!” he calls when he opens the door and kicks his shoes off. No answer. His parents must still be at work, and his sisters are probably in their rooms, listening to music or something. This is the earliest Nagisa has been home in weeks. He’s not used to it anymore.

He drops his backpack two steps into his bedroom and heads straight for the bed. When he’s at home these days he spends most of it here, all wrapped up in sheets and hidden from the world. His mom had taken it as a chance to tidy his room up, maybe thinking that a clean room would help him feel better, but now everything just stays how she left it. All he wants is somewhere to hide.

So, is Rei his punishment? He can’t be sure, not until he talks to Rei, and not until Rei figures some stuff out on his own. He seems as confused by the whole situation as Nagisa is, which isn’t exactly a great sign. And then there’s whatever Rei didn’t want to talk about on the train. For now, Nagisa won’t chalk it up as divine punishment.

So, Nagisa is being haunted by ghost stuck in a swimsuit and prescription goggles who has no idea why he’s supposed to be here and is obsessed with an idea of ‘closure’. He’s also failing all his classes with his relay speed dropping pretty much daily but for now he figures he should just focus on the ghost problem. People in the movies seem to have enough trouble just handling the ghost problem, so all things considered, Nagisa figures he’s doing pretty good so far. Even if his ghost is far from the chain-rattling, flesh-consuming kind those people in movies had to deal with. Rei’s still a ghost. It counts.

But the idea of other ghosts…

Nagisa rolls over to stare up at the ceiling. How many people out there have their own personal ghosts that no one else can see? It’s definitely not just Rei wandering back in from the dead. There have to be others. Maybe there’s some sort of support group for this.

He drags his laptop from out under the bed and brushes off the dust. A quick search for ‘ghost support groups’ turns out entirely useless. ‘What to do when you’re being haunted’ just talks about salt and incantations. ‘How to change ghost clothing?’ brings up some strange sites all in black that ask if he’s over eighteen.

Well, Nagisa guesses it could be worse. If ghosts are stuck in what they died in, there are sure to be some naked ghosts who died in the shower hanging around somewhere. And it’s not like Rei looks bad in his swimsuit. Quite the opposite actually.

_Nope. Stop that thought right there. Don’t go down that lane. Do not. Go down. That lane._

He shuts his eyes and shakes his head back and forth rapidly until he gets dizzy, like that will projectile shoot those thoughts from his head. Rei is dead and searching for a purpose and this is not the time to admire how lean yet muscular his legs look when he’s walking at Nagisa’s side. Because they really do.

Okay, so he managed to suppress those thoughts for about .03 seconds. He’ll work on it.

He shuts the laptop down and slides it back into place beneath his bed before cuddling up once more, cheek pressed to the cool fabric of his pillow. He hopes Rei is doing alright. Nagisa still can’t get over how lost Rei had looked last night after trying to talk to his parents.

Which is why Nagisa is glad he’d stayed. He’d thought briefly about going home and chalking it all up as a mind trick, but something had held him back. Maybe the manic way Rei had insisted that of _course_ his parents would be able to see him. So Nagisa had sat down, and waited, and sure enough there came Rei not five minutes later, looking completely hopeless and bewildered.

It was only natural to invite him to stay the night.

He owes Rei that, at least.

***

Rei meets him at school the next morning, leaning against the wall and still looking ridiculous in his swimsuit, but there! And clearly waiting for him! “Hi!” Nagisa says, running the final few steps to reach Rei, only to get shushed. He frowns. “What?”

“I figured it out!” Rei tells him triumphantly. “How to talk to me!”

“But I can already talk to you,” Nagisa says, blinking slowly. Okay, he’ll admit it, he’s not really on point in the mornings.

“How to talk to me so you don’t look like you’re talking to thin air,” Rei says patiently, and then points to Nagisa’s pocket. “Your phone!”

Nagisa pulls the phone from his pocket, thumbs over where the case is chipped with a bit of a pout, and then looks back up at Rei. “So I just…” He holds the phone up to his ear, and Rei nods and grins.

“I thought of that last night. We’ll be able to hold conversations easily now.” And he laughs, that loud dorky laugh of his that Nagisa had missed so much.

Nagisa keeps the phone pressed to his ear as he walks through the front gates towards the main doors, Rei trailing behind him. He hums, and tilts his head to the side. “Okay, but this won’t work when I’m with Haru-chan or Mako-chan or Kou-chan or Ama-chan-sensei or…”

He checks each name off with his fingers, and when he looks back, Rei is walking with a distinctly disgruntled expression. “Well, it’ll work when we’re walking together, or when we’re on the train,” Rei grumbles. “And when you’re with other people, just don’t talk to me.”

Which doesn’t seem fair at all. To act as if Rei is not there completely. Nagisa frowns, and hikes his backpack higher. “I could still talk to you in Gaelic.” He reaches into his other pocket and unfolds the sheet, leaning against the wall so Rei can peer over his shoulder. “Look, I wrote some up!”

Rei’s face as he looks over the list of words makes the time it had taken worth it ten-fold. That horrified yet slightly amused-against-his-best-efforts expression. “Why would you ever need to say ‘bread’ to me in Gaelic?”

Nagisa turns his face away to hide his grin, shrugs, and folds up the piece of paper to tuck into his pocket once more. He’d ended up doing a bit more internet prowling after dinner, though he’d had much more luck finding Gaelic dictionaries than anything even approaching helpful resources on ghosts. “Well, what if I’m eating bread and...and a bit gets stuck in my throat and I’m on the verge of death…” He stops as soon as his brain catches up with his tongue, and turns to face Rei, brow crumpled. “Sorry.”

Rei cocks his head to one side. “For what?”

“For…” Nagisa coughs and readjusts his backpack. “Joking about dying.”

“Oh.” Rei blinks, and leans forward a little, so their faces are closer together and Nagisa can see the worry lines already appearing around Rei’s eyes. “That doesn’t bother me.”

“But—”

Rei’s hands dart out, but he stops himself at the last second, fingers hovering just above Nagisa’s shoulders. “You don’t need to apologize so much,” he says after a second, and withdraws his hands, still looking concerned.

And Nagisa _hates_ it, hates that Rei now has that same awful worried expression everyone else wears around him, hates that Rei is telling him not to apologize when Nagisa has everything to apologize for. Why can’t anyone understand? Rei should be able to understand. He should be angry and screaming and telling Nagisa that it’s all his fault, but instead he’s like everyone else, acting like everything is fine and normal and like Nagisa is somehow the one they need to worry about.

Nagisa can’t stand it anymore. Not now. Not from Rei. Especially not from Rei.

“I’m going to class now,” he says, and turns away from Rei as he puts his phone back in his pocket. He starts to speed walk down the hall, and hears Rei’s footsteps following him a few seconds later, the flop-flop-flop of bare feet on linoleum.

“Nagisa-kun?”

Nagisa spins in place, pointing to the bulge in his pocket where his phone now resides, and then spins back around. If Rei doesn’t want him to talk to him normally, he’ll use that to his advantage.

“Nagisa-kun,” Rei says again, catching up as Nagisa hits the stairs. “Is something wrong?”

Everything is, but Nagisa shakes his head.

“Did _I_ do something wrong?”

Nagisa glances over at Rei, Rei with his awful pitying eyes, and shakes his head emphatically. “No,” he whispers. “No, no, never.”

Way to go. Now he’s worrying Rei all over again. He’s such a disaster. He walks next to Rei with head hung until they reach their classroom. Nagisa enters first and puts his backpack down with a thud. Everyone around him is chattering and comparing homework answers. Nagisa just slides into his seat and pillows his head in his arms. After a few minutes, he watches Rei sidle through the desks to his vacated one, not yet filled. The class can’t seem to move on yet either.

Rei keeps looking back at Nagisa as class begins, probably thinking he’s being sneaky about it, so Nagisa just turns his head the other way and lets his eyes close. His nightmares make sure his sleep is never quite peaceful. He knows he’d woken his parents up a few times, only because the second night after Rei died his mom had appeared in his room and held him tight while he cried out the memory of waves and a weight he couldn’t drag up in time. But he thinks he’s gotten over the sleep-talking by now at least. If only because he’s pretty sure Rei would have brought it up yesterday if he’d heard anything. Complain about how Nagisa’s mutterings kept him awake, maybe. He’d gone on and on (and on) about it for ten minutes when Nagisa fell asleep and drooled a little on him on the train a couple weeks ago. Still, Nagisa had been a bit worried about Rei staying in his room, with the possibility having Rei hear any of what he dreams about each night. But there hadn’t been much choice asides having Rei stay out in the hallway and anyways, it seems like he didn’t have anything to worry about after all. Rei would have said something by now.

He must fall asleep right there in class because next thing he knows there’s a cold pressure on his arm. He jerks up and Rei holds up the offending hand. “Sorry,” he says, “I didn’t want to yell.”

“No, no, it’s…” Nagisa brushes his unused notebook into his bag, with the bustle of other students all around them. “It’s okay.” He stands, grabs his pack, and heads for the door.

“Are you mad at me?” Rei asks, and Nagisa slows, before turning around with a sigh. He just stares at Rei for a moment, and after a few seconds, Rei crosses his arms across his chest. “I can’t see very well,” he adds, when Nagisa doesn’t say anything. “So you have to tell me. I can’t tell very well from your expression.”

Nagisa fumbles for his phone and holds it to his ear. “I’m not mad,” he says. “I’m just…”

He doesn’t even know what he is anymore. Confused? Angry? Heartbroken? He’d just gotten used to being miserable and empty and then Rei shows up out of the blue, visible only to him, with his dumb dorky smile and laugh and way he stands there with an arm across his chest and Nagisa didn’t know it was possible to miss a person so much when they’re standing right in front of you.

And he’s just waiting for Rei to disappear on him again.

“I’m just hungry,” he says, and turns away. He can hear Rei’s bare feet slapping on the floor as he follows. “You can go up to the roof,” Nagisa tells him, still speaking into the phone. “I’m gonna buy lunch and meet you up there.”

“I can stay with—” Rei starts, but Nagisa shakes his head. “You’ll get elbowed through the stomach probably twenty-thousand times. Just go up to the roof. I’ll find you.”

Rei hesitates, but nods, and Nagisa goes to buy an Iwatobi bread. It takes a while, with the crowd, but eventually he makes it to the stairs leading up to the roof. Whoops. He ducks behind a passing senior to avoid being seen by Makoto and Haru, already sitting at the usual spot. The senior boy looks down at Nagisa looking utterly confused and a little hostile, and Nagisa just grins up at him before darting away.  

Rei is obvious enough with just one quick scan of the roof. He’s sitting at the edge, legs hung over the side. Nagisa slides into place beside him, and then erects his backpack as a barrier between him and the swim team.

“Why are you hunched over?” Rei asks, glancing back over the rest of the roof.

“I’m hiding,” Nagisa tells him, but still makes sure the phone is held against his ear. He tears off the top wrapping of the Iwatobi bread with his teeth.

Rei had already had his say in Nagisa’s diet. He’d given up on ending the reign of Iwatobi bread a week after joining the swim team. He still sighs deeply and meaningfully. Nagisa ignores him.

“So, how are your parents?” he asks. Rei looks away and out across the roofs of the town. “They’re coping,” he says at last. And that seems to be all Nagisa is going to get.

“Do you want to stay with me again tonight?” he asks, fingers fiddling the wrapping of his bread, and Rei nods.

“If I could, yes, I’d be grateful for that.”

“You always can,” Nagisa tells him firmly and probably a bit too loud, and watches Rei’s eyebrows shoot up. “You’re my friend,” he adds. “Of course you can.”

“Friend,” Rei whispers, and laughs a little, eyes going closed. “Yes, that’s right.”

Nagisa frowns, something twingeing in his chest. “What, did you think we weren’t?”

Rei shrugs. “I thought...teammate might be more appropriate but you’re right.” He turns back to Nagisa and smiles, tentative but bright. “You are my friend, Nagisa-kun.”

The frown eases off Nagisa’s face. “Oh. Good.” He shuffles until he’s sitting on the edge with Rei, legs dangling. “So, how long do you think you’ll be here?”

“I think that depends—”

“Nagisa-kun!” Nagisa nearly chokes when the hand clasps in his collar, and then Kou has him flat on the roof staring up at her. “What are you doing?”

“Oh. Hello Kou-san,” Rei says quite pleasantly still on the edge of the roof and Nagisa points to the phone clutched tight in his hand.

“Phonecall.”

She narrows her eyes at him, but is helping him up two seconds later. “Here, come sit with us!” she says, squeezing his hand and smiling. “It’s lonely without you.”

“I’m still on my phone!” he protests, but she’s already lifting his backpack up onto her shoulders and nearly falling over with the weight.

“Talk to them later! Now you eat lunch with your friends!”

Nagisa sends a desperate look back at Rei. If Rei hears anything, if Kou or Haru or Makoto mention anything at all…

“Just stay there!” he orders into the phone. “I’ll be back.” But Rei just gives him a befuddled look and follows him as Kou drags Nagisa over to where Haru and Makoto already sit.

“What were you doing over there, Nagisa?” Makoto asks when Kou has plopped him into place.

“Phonecall,” he says again, and points to the phone still held to his ear. He should probably take that down now, actually. “Talk to you later, bye!” he says, words jamming together, and then laughs nervously as he slips the phone into his pocket. “Cousin. _No, don’t sit there_!”

“Why not?” Rei asks, clearly exasperated as he sits in the gap between Kou and Haru.

“What, don’t sit where?” Makoto gets up onto his knees and checks all around him for the problem.

“Why not?” Kou asks, sending him a suspicious look, and Nagisa gives up. He draws his knees to his chest and hides his face.

“Okay, just sit down,” he mutters, lifting his head just enough to watch Makoto settle down and Rei get comfortable. After a second, Nagisa remembers his Iwatobi bread and takes a resentful little bite. The silence they sit in is begging to be filled, and he’s sure he knows the topic.

“I don’t think we’ll be be able to compete in prefecturals,” Makoto says, and Nagisa’s head jerks up. Alright, he might have misjudged the silence after all.

“No fourth member?” he asks, and Haru, Makoto and Kou all shake their heads. Rei sits there looking guilty.

Haru slumps against the wall and stares off into nothing. “We need four members. Otherwise, no relay.” He looks so resigned to the fact, almost depressed, and Nagisa hasn’t really had a chance to talk to Haru about it. He hasn’t talked much to Haru at all. Not that Haru is the very talkative type.

But that can wait, because at this point Rei has surpassed guilt and is looking absolutely ashamed. “It’s not your fault!” Nagisa yelps on instinct, before clapping his hands over his mouth. Haru jerks upright and stares at him with eyes wide, and it’s with a soft voice that Makoto reaches out and says, “It’s not anyone’s fault Nagisa.” He grabs Nagisa’s shoulder and his thumb runs soothingly down Nagisa’s arm and back up again. “It’s not anyone’s fault and it’s alright if things don’t work out this year. There’s still next year to find someone new. And we can all compete in our individual events. The faculty are letting us remain a club for now...considering what happened.”

Nagisa shrugs off Makoto’s hand, slow enough to make sure it doesn’t come off as rejection. “I... I don’t think I want to compete.” He makes sure to not meet Rei’s eyes.

Kou sighs, and props her chin in her hands. “We thought you might say that.”

“What? You’ve been…” Nagisa draws his knees tighter and clenches his fingers in the fabric of his pants. “You’ve been talking about me behind my back?”

Of course they have. Everyone has. But he hates them bringing it up like this, like this is some sort of intervention.

“Nagisa,” Haru says, and, because it’s Haru, everyone switches their gaze to him. Haru’s brow is creased, and his hands interlaced in his lap. “We’re all really worried about you.”

Oh no. Not now. Not with Rei sitting right there, no. But Rei is sitting there, and Nagisa can feel his gaze on him.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” he mutters, and goes to take another bite of his bread.

“Nagisa-kun…” Kou sighs, and reaches over to grab his hands. “We know you’re hurting right now. We all are.”

Great. So this really is an intervention.

“I said you don’t have to worry about me!” he says, voice growing louder with each word.

“Nagisa.” It’s Makoto this time. They’re all ganging up on him. “You’re barely eating anything anymore. You look exhausted all the time. Your time trials have gone down by five seconds. And now you’ve started avoiding us. We know you and Rei had...something…” Nagisa very pointedly looks away from Rei, feeling his face go hot. “...but we’re afraid for you. And Rei wouldn’t want to see you like this.”

_Well, why don’t you ask him? He’s sitting right there._

“We just want to help,” Kou says quietly, and Nagisa snaps.

“I don’t want your help!” He grabs his backpack and scrambles to his feet. “See you at practice.”

He practically runs for the door, and gallops down the stairs until he finds a semi-empty hallway. A windowsill to hide on.

“Damn it,” he whispers to himself as he tucks himself up on the windowsill and buries his face in his knees. “Damn it, damn it, damn it.”

His face is hot and red, and his throat is tight. Why can’t they just leave him alone? All he wants is to be left alone.

All he wants is to fade away into nothing, so that he won’t have to feel the pain of Rei’s death in every breath he takes. Can’t they understand that?

That he doesn’t deserve their kindness. Their understanding. Their friendship. He doesn’t deserve any of that because Rei is dead and nothing they do can ever change the fact that it’s all Nagisa’s fault.

He sniffs loudly and curls his legs a little tighter to his body. Maybe he can just squish himself into nonexistence. It would be a bit of a relief, to just not exist for a few days. A few weeks. To not have to deal with any of this. With his parents, or with school, or his friends. He’s not sure how he’s made it these two weeks even. Some sort of miracle. And then Rei showed back up and everything is that much more confusing.

He’s not surprised when he hears Rei’s voice, right close to his ear. “Is this...is this a situation where I should say something, or should I be quiet?”

Nagisa laughs a little into his knees. “Quiet, I think.”

“Okay.” There’s a soft thump, and Nagisa turns his head just a little to see that Rei has simply slid down the wall beside him and sits now with his legs splayed across the floor. Nagisa watches him, as Rei fiddles with his hands a bit before finally settling with one leg folded up and the other stretched out.

“They don’t mean any harm,” Rei says, very softly, after a few minutes of silence.

Nagisa sniffs again and wishes he could gain some sort of control over himself. “I know.”

Rei goes quiet once more, even as the bell rings for classes to begin once more. Nagisa ignores it too, and just keeps tucked on his windowsill.

Finally, he hears Rei stand up in the empty hallway. “Nagisa-kun?”

Nagisa turns his head so he can look up at Rei. “Yes?”

Rei clears his throat, and his fingers reach up for his glasses, groping for nothing. “I know this is...completely presumptuous and inappropriate considered we’ve only known each other for a few weeks but…”

And Rei gets stuck, frowning as he tries to find the words he needs. “But?” Nagisa prompts him after a minute.  

Rei breathes in deep, and closes his eyes before continuing. “But I think there is a definite reason that I was pulled to you, and I would like to know if you’d be comfortable…” Another break. “With me staying at your house.”

Nagisa raises his eyebrows. He’s pretty sure they’ve had this conversation. “I already said you could spend the night, Rei-chan.”

“No, no, I meant like as a long-term arrangement.” Rei reopens his eyes only to cast his gaze up to the ceiling. “Until I...figure things out in terms of this closure business. I think I’d like to stay by your side.”

It feels like Nagisa’s heart almost gives out.

Rei. Wanting to stay by his side.

It’s almost like a second chance.

“Are you sure?” he asks softly. “I’m pretty annoying to live with. According to my sisters, at least.”

Rei shakes his head with a smile. “I think I’ll live.” He puts on a comical exasperated expression, some show in an attempt to cheer Nagisa up. Thing is, it’s working. “Oh, wait…”

Nagisa snorts. “Rei-chan…”

“I’m allowed to joke about it,” Rei tells him firmly. And then his voice grows hesitant once more. “Now. Is that alright? For me to stay with you?”

Nagisa wipes at his eyes with his sleeves and gives Rei the brightest smile he can manage. It makes his cheeks hurt, and he realizes how long it’s been since he’s pulled that particular smile out. “I think I’d like that very much,” he says, and Rei smiles back at him.

“Then I guess you’re stuck with me, Nagisa-kun.”

Nagisa sniffs again and chuckles. “I guess I am.” He chuckles again, and holds a hand up in salute. “I take full responsibility,” he intones, and Rei blinks at him before his eyes soften and he laughs, and maybe it’s worth existing just for that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for reading! Next update will be next Monday!


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the kudos and comments last section! I hope you enjoy this update!

Settling into Nagisa’s life is easier than Rei would have expected. Given that Nagisa had possessed the power of raising Rei’s blood pressure to about three times survivable standards, Rei thought that after the whole initial shock of his ghostliness had settled down, Nagisa would gradually remember just how much he loved to annoy Rei and go at it full throttle.

But it doesn’t happen. Instead, Rei sidles into place like there was already a spot left open, right there at Nagisa’s side. Like it’s just simply supposed to be that way.

The first night, Rei wanders around Nagisa’s room while the Hazuki family has dinner. He’d hovered at Nagisa’s shoulder for a while, but Nagisa had not been kidding when he said he’d come from a loud family. Only two of three sisters are even in the house right now, and the meal is completely chaotic. Rei can understand just perfectly now why Nagisa seems to operate on a volume level two ticks up from everyone else. He has to just to be heard in this household.

It’s sort of hard to tell what Nagisa’s parents are like, since 90 percent of the conversation is produced by the three kids (really mostly the girls, since Nagisa is pretty quiet), but when they do speak up, it seems pretty standard stuff, asking about school and similar subjects. And then the sisters. There’s Mizuki, who attends the same university Rei’s father is a professor at. She has some sort of project due soon, and complains loudly about her partners’ ineptitudes. There’s Chiasa, who has started working for a small business down at the peer and is saving up for her own apartment, which is a topic of conversation for at least ten minutes. And then another five minutes of Nagisa outright lying in a monotone voice about how he’s doing in school. Rei didn’t even need Nagisa to tell him he was failing. There’s no way someone who is sleeping through his classes is passing any of his exams, and there Nagisa is claiming he’s passing them all. Rei goes and stands behind Nagisa’s parents at that point and makes a disbelieving face, and Nagisa narrows his eyes at him as he tries to continue outrageously lying about his grades. Rei gives up and decides to head for someplace quiet. Let Nagisa lie all he wants—he’s just digging his own grave.

Which leads to being bored in Nagisa’s room. He doesn’t want to pry into anything, but it’s not like there’s much left out to pry into anyways. The books on the desk are gathering dust. Everything is gathering dust, actually. This room really hasn’t been lived in for weeks, and it’s just as disconcerting as it was two nights ago.

He turns when he hears the door, and then Nagisa is there, closing the door with a click and a sigh of relief. “Whew. Okay. So that’s the family. We’re loud.”

“I noticed.” Rei can still hear Mizuki and Chiasa outside in the hallway, talking about some article published online. “It’s fine. Don’t worry.”

It’s a bit nice, actually, if he’s going to admit anything to himself, even if the continual noise at dinner had bothered him. Last night, when he’d stayed with his parents, it had been so quiet. He’d walked around his own room in the dark, eyes scanning the trophies on the shelves, and the books, and the clothes neatly stacked at the end of his bed waiting to be put in the closet, alongside the book he’d abandoned, half-read. Just like he left it.

He’d jumped when his mom opened the door, and retreated to the corner of the room. But all she’d done was walk in, leaving the light off, and brush her fingers along the blankets of his bed.

“Mom,” he’d said, and she’d stopped. “Mom,” he’d repeated, and gone up right behind her. His arms wrapped around her waist, and he’s sure he felt her shiver. “I love you Mom.”

And then his mom, his strong, strong mom who’d he’d always been able to go to for anything, started to cry. Great sobs that wracked up her body and left her coughing and sobbing, sitting on the bed with his clothes hugged tight to her chest. It took maybe a minute for his dad to come running in, bundling her up in his arms as they cried together.

The man in the Netherworld had talked about saying goodbye. But how is he supposed to say goodbye when he knows his parents are still in so much pain? Or is acknowledging there will be pain all a part of it as well?

He’d slept on the rumpled up sheets that night, long after his parents picked themselves up and made it to their own bedroom.

And it had been so quiet. Quiet like only death can bring. The Hazuki household is still full of sound and life. He doesn’t want Nagisa to apologize for that.

“Okay…” Nagisa kicks one foot against the floor, and then in an instant is all smiles and excited voice. Like the flick of a switch. “What do you want to do?”

Rei frowns. “What?”

“What do you want to do?” Nagisa shrugs. “I mean, okay, I guess if you just want to sit around that’s okay but…”

“What can we even do?” Rei asks, and then adds in a slightly accusatory tone, “And don’t you have homework?”

Nagisa waves a hand dismissively and shucks off his tie and sweatervest. “Homework. Trivial. Wanna watch a movie?” He takes a running leap at the bed and throws himself onto it, sending pillows flying. He crawls over to the side of the bed and drag a laptop up from underneath it. “What about a ghost movie?”

Rei makes a face and settles on the other side of the bed. “I’ve never been good with horror movies.”

“But you’re a ghost now. What can you be afraid of?” Nagisa sighs dramatically and his shoulders slump. “Look, nothing too scary, just stuff with ghosts, ‘kay? I want to compare fiction to reality.”

Rei still shakes his head. Nagisa sighs, and flops over.

At least now he’s acting much livelier than this afternoon, more like himself. That had unnerved Rei, the Nagisa who yelled at his friends and ran for a safe place to hide. He doesn’t know that Nagisa, hadn’t really realized before that that Nagisa could exist. It was half the reason he asked to come stay. Sure, half of it is because he doesn’t think he could stand staying in an apartment where every corner is filled with the memory and pain of his death. But then Nagisa had looked so small, scrunched up there on the windowsill, and Rei can see why everyone is worried about him. Rei is worried about him, and that was all it took to ask if he could take up some sort of permanent residence. Something rash that he never would have thought to ask before, but it makes him feel better to see Nagisa being more…

Being more Nagisa again.

Which is why he smiles as Nagisa keeps rolling until he bumps up against Rei, brief fuzz along his side indicating they’re intersecting until Nagisa shifts just a little bit away. “Okay, how about no ghosts? Just a movie.”

“That I can do,” Rei tells him, and Nagisa grins.

“Great! I’m gonna get ready so we can turn the lights out!”

Rei waits while Nagisa washes up and changes into pajamas. He actually gets a good look at the pajamas this time when Nagisa comes back into the room. Shorts and a shirt in lurid colors. Polka-dotted. He shakes his head with a smile as Nagisa browses the movie collection in his bookcase. Of course.

“Okay!” Nagisa crawls back into the bed and opens up his laptop, inserting a disc at the same time. “I’ll turn off the light, hold on.” He’s gone again, and then back, with the lights all turned off so only the screen and alarm clock light up the room. Nagisa gets the movie started up and gestures for Rei to move closer, until they’re both lying on their stomachs with chins propped up on their hands. The screen goes dark as the beginning credits roll, and Rei feels a little dip in his gut as he sees Nagisa’s reflection in the screen, all alone.

He wishes he’d taken the chance when he was still alive to invite Nagisa to stay over. They could have watched movies and stayed up late talking nonsense and eaten as many sweets as Nagisa wanted.

But he hadn’t appreciated Nagisa as much as he should have. He didn’t really appreciate any of them as much as he should have. Still too embarrassed and caught up in his own failure as a swimmer, caught up in his fear of looking foolish. Haru. Makoto. Kou. They were all so kind and patient. And Nagisa. Nagisa had entered his life like a firework exploding in the sky, for the few weeks of that life he had. Sharing swimsuits and stealing glasses and dragging Rei into this whole different world. One where Nagisa said he was beautiful and then showed him that he didn’t belong alone.

Rei had been so used to being alone. And suddenly Nagisa was there.

And then just as suddenly, Rei left.

Rei left Nagisa alone.

He hadn’t really thought of it that way yet.

He doesn’t take in much of the movie at all, couldn’t even pretend to know what it’s about. A few people die, he thinks, so maybe Nagisa did sneak a little bit of horror in there after all, but Rei spends most of his time studying Nagisa’s reflection, occasionally turning his head so he can watch as Nagisa’s eyes begin to droop and his head bobs lower and lower to the mattress as he fights to stay awake. The movie is maybe half over when Rei finally nudges him with one finger, and Nagisa looks blearily over at him. “Nagisa-kun?” Rei whispers, “Why don’t you shut the laptop down, and I’ll get on the floor, okay?”

Nagisa nods slowly, and shuts the laptop down, and shuffles over so he can pop it underneath the bed once more, but as soon as he scoots back into place and Rei starts to sit up and slide away, he makes small sounds of protest.

“What?” Rei asks, and Nagisa’s fingers close around his wrist, almost perfectly circling it without touching.

“Stay on the bed with me,” Nagisa orders sleepily. “Take one side.”

Rei feels his face heat up at the very thought. “That...that’s unnecessary. I’m fine on the floor and I don’t want to inconvenience you and…”

“‘s not an inconvenience, Rei-chan.” Rei can actually hear the eyeroll in those words. “Sleep on the bed.”

“It wouldn’t be appropriate!” Rei tries in one last ditch effort, and this time, Nagisa giggles into his pillow. “We can’t even really touch each other. Go to sleep, Rei-chan.”

And that’s it. He’d feel ridiculous arguing anymore. Rei climbs slowly back onto the bed and lays his head down on the pillow opposite Nagisa. His head goes right through. Nagisa giggles again and grabs the pillow, tossing it off the side. Rei watches as it hits the floor with a soft thump. He lays his head back down onto the mattress solid beneath him and turns to find Nagisa staring at him, eyes just lit up enough by the light of his clock, flashing burgundy.

And Nagisa doesn’t look away. Doesn’t blink, doesn’t blush. Just stares at him with those suddenly unfathomable eyes and Rei can’t begin to guess just what Nagisa is thinking.

But for him, in this moment, it’s like they’re the only two people in the world. And they may as well be. Nagisa is the only person who can see him, hear him, who knows he’s there. Rei tries to come up with something to say, but maybe words would ruin it. He’s staring into the only eyes in the world that can stare back at him, and all Rei knows is that for some reason, Nagisa was enough to keep him tethered to this world. His unfinished business.

And then Nagisa smiles, and yawns, and mumbles something that is probably ‘goodnight’, and thunks his face into the pillow. Completely ruins the moment. If that had actually been a moment. Rei doesn’t know. He doesn’t have experience with any of this. He’s not sure how to differentiate between Moments and just plain moments.

He sighs and rolls over onto his back when Nagisa’s breathing has regulated and stares up at the ceiling. And then wonders why his first reaction to Nagisa insisting they share the bed was that it’d be ‘inappropriate’. Nagisa’s right. It was absurd and he doesn’t understand it.

But maybe part of becoming a part of Nagisa’s life is going to be accepting there will be a lot he won’t understand.

When Nagisa wakes him up with nightmares, Rei rolls over to face the other way and squeezes his eyes shut, hands clamped over his ears, and just hopes it stops soon.

 

***

 

If Nagisa finds it awkward waking up next to Rei in the morning, he gives no sign of it. Rather, he just stretches his arms upwards and yawns, before looking over at Rei and smiling while he rubs at his eye. “Good morning Rei-chan. Did you sleep?”

Rei nods, still flat on the mattress.

“Did you sleep well?”

He lies and nods again, and Nagisa beams.

He ends up following Nagisa to school again. Nagisa doesn’t seem to have much to say today, but he still keeps his phone pressed to his ear the entire time on the train and walking to the school gates. “I’m going to rent lots of ghost movies,” he says at one point, and Rei hums, before realizing this is Nagisa’s attempt at starting a conversation.

“I don’t think that’ll be very helpful,” he says, standing close to Nagisa on the train so no one will put things through him. “I doubt anyone writing for those movies has experienced an actual haunting. Certainly nothing frightening or dramatic.”

“But couldn’t you be a bad ghost?” Nagisa asks, and Rei gives him an affronted look.

“I would like to think I’m a perfectly good ghost, but…” The man in the Netherworld had said something about revenge. He’d even wondered about it himself, he remembers, when he’d found out only Nagisa could see him. “But I suppose ghosts could come back to avenge their deaths.” He chews on the inside of his cheek and then adds, “But I don’t really know how they’d do that. Any of that scary movie stuff. I have very little influence over things in this world. I don’t think I’ll be making the furniture fly around the room or anything like that anytime soon.”

Nagisa just tilts his head to the side and nods. After a minute, Rei coughs and tells him, “Though I suppose watching ghost movies wouldn’t hurt.” He needs to gather as much information as he can, after all.

Nagisa sleeps through his classes again, and goes to eat lunch with Rei at the windowsill he’d taken refuge at yesterday. Once again, Rei gives up on trying to get Nagisa to buy something more nutritious. Nagisa’s phone vibrates a couple of times, and he glances at it and frowns before shoving it into his pocket.

“Avoiding the problem doesn’t help,” Rei tells him firmly, and Nagisa juts out his lower lip and doesn’t say anything. But he gets hit over the head with Kou’s clipboard for ignoring her texts the moment he appears at the pool that afternoon. She grabs Nagisa’s hand and drags him away, and Rei takes that as his cue to leave the immediate vicinity. He goes to the far corner of the pool and goes to stick his feet in. He can feel the cool of the water, along with the fuzzy sensation through his lower legs, but it’s with the same disassociation he’s found with everything else. He can feel the cold, but it doesn’t bother him. He can sleep, but he doesn’t need sleep. The only time he feels something as sharply he did as when he was alive is when he pinches himself. That still hurts.

He still yelps when water splashes up onto the pavement where he sits, and wipes his face intuitively before glaring down at where Nagisa is bobbing. “Do you want a vengeful ghost? Because I can become a vengeful ghost.”

Nagisa just grins again, and pops his goggles back over his eyes before swimming back over to the other side of the pool, letting his feet light on the bottom as soon as he can reach and walking the rest of the way. Rei sighs, and grabs at the goggles around his own neck. It’s been enough days he’s beginning to get used to his blurry vision, and there’s no way he’s going to walk around anymore with his goggles on, but he still wishes he could have died with his glasses. Everything is just a little bit fuzzy at the edges, not enough to be a huge hindrance, but enough that it’s difficult to pick up on the details of people’s facial expressions, or read anything that’s farther than a meter away. It’s not a real problem, for now. Nagisa tends to be pretty expressive, although Rei would have been in trouble if he’d ended up haunting Haru, who can only be read by micro expressions. And Rei doesn’t actually need to pay attention and read the board in class anymore, even though it would be more interesting than sitting there watching Nagisa sleep. He doesn’t want to wake Nagisa up though. The naps Nagisa takes in class seem to be dreamless, or at least filled with the types of dreams that don’t leave him whimpering Rei’s name. Rei isn’t sure how to handle that. How to casually bring up that Nagisa relives that night outloud in his dreams. And that Rei is always there to hear it.

Death should be simpler than this.

Nagisa perks up the moment it’s just him and Rei again, walking to the train after practice. He starts listing off movies he hasn’t seen yet and should get his hands on, and Rei nods and hums accordingly.

The night goes by very much like the last. Nagisa forgoes any homework or studying he might have to do, and Rei hides in his room while the family has dinner.

“Do ghosts get hungry?” Nagisa asks, once he’s bounded back into his room with a type of energy that’s appearing for the first time today, that energy that had always made Nagisa who he was. “Do you need ghost food?”

“I don’t think I can get hungry,” Rei says, leaning back against the headboard of the bed with legs crossed. “Where would we get ghost food anyways?”

“Burn regular food to death,” Nagisa answers simply, and Rei makes a pledge to monitor Nagisa’s activity in the kitchen for the near future.

“I’m not hungry,” he says firmly, and Nagisa glances up from where he’s shucking off his sweatervest. And grins.

“Want to try making some ghost food, Rei-chan?”

“No. _No_.” Nagisa starts heading towards the door, and Rei scrambles off the bed, just managing to plaster himself in front of the door in time.

“I can just go through you,” Nagisa reminds him, still grinning, but the grin keeps breaking into suppressed laughter, and Rei is pretty sure Nagisa is just teasing him at this point.

“And I am really hoping you will not do that,” he says, looking straight ahead, and then after five seconds of silence Nagisa begins to giggle. He spins in his socks across the floor over to the bookcase, and starts searching for movies, while Rei relaxes and returns to the bed.

“Ghost movies!” Nagisa shouts as he tosses a bunch of DVD cases haphazardly at the bed, and half of them end up on the floor. The other half go through Rei.

“Nagisa-kun…”

But Nagisa is laughing, and Rei can’t even keep up his annoyed act for more than a few seconds. He glances down at the cases of the movies. “These all look pretty bloody.”

“Don’t worry Rei-chan.” Nagisa shuffles on his knees over to the bed, and props his head up on his folded arms, grinning up at Rei. “I’ll protect you.”

Rei huffs, and looks away, studying the ceiling while Nagisa picks out which movie he wants to watch, sets the rest in a haphazard pile on the nightside table, and finally gets his laptop all set up at the base of the bed, so they both end up sitting cross-legged side by side.

It is bloody, and Rei is completely sure that whoever wrote this script had absolutely no experience with actual hauntings. But Nagisa seems completely into it. “Hey, can you do that?” he asks once about every five minutes, to which each answer is a squeamish but firm “NO!”

“Hey, can you—” Nagisa is starting to say when the door opens and his mom pokes her head in.

“It’s late!” she scolds in a whisper, and sure enough, the hallway beyond her is dark. “Time for bed!”

Nagisa glances at the clock and winces. Rei is trying to regulate his breathing after having the door open all sudden like that. He’s not going to have Nagisa making fun of him for being startled by his mother.

“Sorry,” Nagisa whispers, and closes the laptop. “I’ll get ready.”

“Alright.” His mom steps into the room, and Nagisa hops off the bed towards her, accepts the kiss to his forehead, and whispers a goodnight to her as she leaves. He turns to Rei as soon as her footsteps fade away. “Awww, Rei-chan, you look like you’ve seen a ghost.”

“Not funny!” Rei calls as Nagisa grabs his pajamas and skips out of the room. “Not funny,” he says again, after Nagisa has returned with hair damp from a shower and all dolled up in his colorful pajamas. Nagisa turns off the lights and scrambles onto the bed.

“A little funny,” he says, smiling at Rei. His hair is pushed nearly straight up, curls just beginning to fall back down to frame his face.

Rei just shakes his head. “Oh, just go to sleep,” he grumbles, and flops down onto the mattress. Nagisa’s laugh is bright in the darkness, and Rei can’t stop from smiling in return as Nagisa wraps himself up in his blankets and curls up near Rei’s side. Rei turns his head to see Nagisa watching him again. Just like last night, and Rei is caught by the same feeling, drawn into the depths he hadn’t always realized were there in Nagisa’s eyes. He should say something this time. Try to articulate his thoughts. Rei takes a breath in, and tries to think of something to say, but Nagisa beats him to it.

“I’m glad you’re here, Rei-chan,” he says softly, and smiles gently, eyes gone soft. And then he yawns, and wiggles his legs a little, and snuggles deeper into the blankets so only his closed eyes are visible.

Rei stays staring in Nagisa’s direction for a long time.

He’s glad he’s here too. Not just back among the living either. Right here, beside Nagisa. He’s not sure how he’d be handling this, if he didn’t have Nagisa to help him. To laugh at him and with him and make horrible jokes and make Rei smile with just how cheesy they are. He still wishes his parents could see him, wishes it with everything he has, but it no longer seems like a disaster that Nagisa is able to. Actually, he can’t think of anyone else that he’d rather be able to see him. Nagisa, the one person he can now really truly call his friend. He is glad to be here, lying on the bed listening to Nagisa’s steady breathing and letting it lull him into sleep.

He’d be more glad if he wasn’t woken once again to the sound of Nagisa whispering his name into the night.

 

***

 

The next morning, he follows Nagisa to school. And to lunch, when Nagisa leads them both up to the rooftop to sit quietly in place with the rest of the team. He follows him to practice. And home once more. Nagisa sleeps through his classes, and barely contributes to the conversation during lunch. It’s so different from the bubbly Nagisa Rei had watched horror movies with last night, who had bounced on the bed and teased him about seeing a ghost and smiled so easily. Nagisa moves through the rest of his life like he is the ghost instead, and only comes to life once safe with Rei in his room once more. A room they fill with easy laughter and joking that comes so easily when it’s the two of them alone. It’s so simple, when it’s just him and Nagisa, back together again. And so a week passes before Rei can even count the days. But as each day passes, Rei begins to get more and more worried about the way Nagisa just...turns off. Like a human lightbulb. Off when he’s at school, or interacting with the rest of the team. On the moment he can start talking to Rei. It wasn’t like this before. Nagisa had plenty of energy and laughter and smiles for everyone. It wasn’t a limited resource.

Just what happened after he died?

He sits by the pool during each practice that week, and occasionally wanders over to where Kou sits shaded from the sun. She still has practice drills on her clipboard, but she rarely implements them. In fact, the swim team doesn’t seem to do much anymore. Either it’s worrying about the issue of a fourth member, usually when Nagisa is out of earshot, or it’s swimming with abandon, no care for times or even technique. Well, naturally Haru swims with perfect technique, and while Makoto may not be trying to beat his best times, he’s at least calm. Nagisa swims like he wants the water to swallow him whole, disappearing in and out of the waves created by his sloppy strokes and wayward legs. It’s a complete mess.

Rei thinks back to when he first came back, and found Nagisa lying at the pool’s edge with his feet in the water. Staring up at the sky. Lying later and saying he’d been watching the stars, but maybe in the same way Rei was pulled back by the memory of the swimming pool, Nagisa has some reason to want to be there himself.

And then there’s the way Nagisa calls his name out at night. The dreams Rei is still too much of a coward to interrupt. At least Rei died once. Not again and again and again. And again and again and again Rei wonders if the right thing to do would be to wake Nagisa up, to stop his struggling limbs and desperate pleas. But he’s not sure he’s ready to talk yet about what happened. Not sure he’s ready for that conversation. And somehow he doesn’t feel Nagisa will handle it well either. So it’s for both their benefits, he tells himself each night, that he doesn’t bring it up.

But then when Nagisa wakes up in the morning with his hair sticking in all directions he smiles at Rei and chatters happily to him on the way to school via their fake phone system and it’s like the nightmares never happened at all and Rei is really growing quite impressed with the way Nagisa has taken all that pain and tucked it away carefully in the hopes that Rei won’t see, only to have his dreams betray him every night. He’s impressed, and he’s worried, because it makes him wonder just how much Nagisa manages to hide.

Because Nagisa is quiet and distant to everyone on the team, and refuses to talk, and Rei doesn’t need to his glasses to tell how many worried glances Haru and Makoto share between them, how Kou watches Nagisa with sad eyes whenever he can’t see her looking. Even with Rei, Nagisa is able to just laugh and change the subject whenever Rei tries to bring up the swim team or his classes or anything approaching serious subject matter at all. It’s Nagisa’s own, unique way of being distant, Rei realizes, by pretending that he’s perfectly close and there’s nothing to worry about.

He’d been so wrong in his first impressions. It’s embarrassing to remember how he’d first thought of Nagisa as a nuisance. And then a nuisance he was fond of, but still a nuisance. And then a teammate who managed to still be a nuisance that he was fond of. And maybe something else, he doesn’t know. But he’d never realized just how much more to Nagisa there was. He never wanted to let Nagisa in. And so in return, Nagisa did the same.

Rei can’t lie and say he doesn’t spend a significant portion of the nights worrying about just how much Nagisa is hiding from him.

He begins to get used to the feeling of passing through doors and having the occasional elbow jabbed through him. The feeling isn’t painful, but now he’d describe it as more of a tingle, like when an arm or leg went to sleep, but concentrated in one certain area. Manageable, in other terms. Not that he’s going to go stand in a wall for the afternoon, but it’s stopped bothering him as much as it was when he first arrived.

It’s night, about a week and a half after he started sleeping at the Hazuki house, and he’s turned away so Nagisa can change. Part of him knows that it’s a little silly to be so careful about it when he spent time with Nagisa in the pool club room seeing basically everything he’d see if he turned back around anyways, but a bigger part of him remembers when he just phased through the door while Nagisa was getting into uniform one morning and he hadn’t been able to form a proper apology for five minutes given how much he was stammering. Calm, cool and collected Rei Ryugazaki. He doesn’t even know why he was embarrassed by it. It’s just Nagisa. But Nagisa has always had the knack of getting Rei flustered. So Rei is facing Nagisa’s desk and scanning the fairly atrocious test scores snuck past his parents that night when suddenly there is an arm sticking through his stomach. The hand fumbles around for a pen, finds it, and then Nagisa is pulling his arm back out. Rei turns around clutching at the spot on his stomach the arm had recently been protruding from. “Nagisa-kun!”

“Hmm?” Nagisa is holding the lid of the pen in his teeth as he scribbles something on his hand. He caps the pen and starts twirling it between his fingers.

“Could you not…” Rei gestures to the general area of his stomach. “Purposefully reach through me? Please?”

“Oh.” Nagisa stops twirling the pen and his mouth opens a little in surprise. “Sorry Rei-chan, I thought that didn’t hurt anymore!”

“It doesn’t hurt, it just…”

Nagisa steps forward, and then exaggeratedly reaches around Rei to put the pen back in its place. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, and then grins, and holds up the hand he scribbled on. “I need to remember to grab a lunch in the morning. I ran out of lunch money for the week.”

“I’ll help you remember,” Rei tells him, following as Nagisa hops over to the bed and tosses himself onto the blankets. He can’t help but smile as Nagisa sighs and stretches from fingertips to toes.

“Rei-chan?” Nagisa sits up just as Rei sits down, and starts kicking his legs out. “I’m sorry I hurt you.”

Rei sighs. “It didn’t hurt, it just felt strange.”

“Oh. Okay.” Nagisa keeps kicking. “Then how about I try not to touch you then?”

Rei watches Nagisa’s feet kicking out and back in, out and back in. Nagisa looks so vulnerable and small and soft, in his shorts and t-shirt and mussed up hair, face still red from where he’d scrubbed it clean. In the morning, he’ll look even more a mess, with hair sticking up everywhere, like always. “Yes. I think that’s a good idea,” he says, and Nagisa nods decisively.

“Okay! Rule Number Two: no touching without asking first.”

“Wait, a rule?”

“Yes, a list of rules!”

“There’s going to be a list?” Rei asks bemusedly, and Nagisa laughs.

“Probably. We are living together now, after all. We’ll need some rules.”

“So what’s rule one?”

“That you sleep on the bed with me.”

Rei goes red. “I—I—I always do that anyways, you don’t need to make it a rule!”

Nagisa purses his lips and shrugs, like there’s nothing he can do. “It’s Rule One.”

Nagisa spends first period the next day of school writing the down the rules instead of listening to the teacher, which Rei guesses is at least a step up from sleeping. Since there’s only two rules so far, Nagisa takes his time writing them out, and then adding decorations around the edges and putting a fancy title at the top. “Rei and Nagisa’s Rules of Ghostly Living Arrangements.”  

“If anyone besides me sees that they’re really going to think you’ve lost it,” Rei warns as Nagisa slips the paper into his binder. He’s still in class, so he can’t reply, but Nagisa waves a dismissive hand.

And so the List is born.

Rule Number One: Rei-chan sleeps on the bed.

Rule Number Two: No touching without asking.

Rei can acknowledge it’s probably a good idea at this point to start setting some boundaries, especially since he still doesn’t know what it is he needs to be doing to complete his unfinished business and return to the Netherworld and this brief haunting just seems to be getting longer and longer.

Except then, of course, he feels like breaking the rules that very night.

It starts with them lying on opposite sides of the bed. Rei knows from the past week and a bit that by morning they’ll have gravitated together, practically nose to nose, but he’s always awake first, to move and avoid any potential embarrassing scenarios. Nagisa is playing a videogame with the sound turned down low when he glances over at Rei, who lies on the mattress staring up at the ceiling. “Would you like a book?”

“Hmm?” He turns his head to one side, but Nagisa is already clambering out of bed and heading to his bookshelf. He returns a moment later with a much-battered book in his hands.

“This is one of my favorites. Would you like to read it? Sorry, I didn’t think of it until now.”

Rei reaches up and brushes his fingers across—and slightly through—the cover. Yes. Yes he would. He’s missed reading, and the escape it provides. And he’s curious now, to what sort of book would be Nagisa’s favorite. But. “How?” he asks. “I can’t…” He draws his hand back and balls his fingers. “I can’t touch it.”

Nagisa hums and gets back under the covers. He lays the book out on the bed between them, open to the very first page. “Just tell me when to flip the page.”

“Nagisa-kun…” Rei starts, but Nagisa just tosses his game to the end of the bed and is already settling on the bed so he can easily reach and turn the page. “Thank you,” Rei says quietly, and pillows his chin in his hands so he can begin to read. It’s difficult, of course, and it gives him a bit of a headache to read, but it’s alright. The print is fairly large, which helps a lot.

It’s about half-an-hour before Nagisa falls asleep, and his hand drifts down the page until Rei can no longer make out the words. The light has been left on, but Nagisa looks so peaceful lying there, mouth slightly open and hair already starting to stick up on one side that Rei doesn’t want to wake him.

And Rei finds himself aching to touch him. To brush the hair out of his eyes, to take his hand where it lies upon the book, however impossible the idea is.

Which is dangerous. These are dangerous, dangerous thoughts and he won’t think them anymore because they have a rule now. No touching. No touching. No touching. And Rei adds the last part himself. No _wanting_ to touch.

Anything else is just going to lead to trouble. What sort of trouble he’s not sure, because he has no idea where these thoughts are coming from. It’s Nagisa. It’s just Nagisa. Who always changes everything in Rei’s world and leaves him staggering.

It’s just Nagisa who tentatively asks if Rei would be alright walking down by the shore a few days later. Probably wondering if Rei would be scared of the ocean.

Not really, as it turned out. The gentle lull of waves in and out is calming, actually, as he and Nagisa walk side by side, Nagisa holding up his phone with one hand and eating a popsicle with the other. Nagisa is the one who ends up staring into the water, frowning slightly and letting the popsicle melt in his hand as the sun sinks beneath the horizon.

“Nagisa-kun,” Rei says quietly, after a few minutes, and Nagisa jolts, and then laughs as he starts licking the melted popsicle from his hand.

“Sorry Rei-chan! Just thought I saw I saw a whale. Hey, hey, hey! Let’s go to the peer and watch the boats come in!” And off he goes.

Like whales are even a slightly plausible excuse.

Rei doesn’t follow though. Instead, he sits on the sand and lets the waves roll in over his feet and lower legs. He knocks his toes together and stares out over the ocean, until Nagisa comes back. “Rei-chan?”

“It’s very beautiful,” Rei says softly, and after a minute, Nagisa sits beside him, shoes and socks discarded a ways up the sand.

“You think that?”

Rei nods, and presses his lips together as he tilts his head to stare up at the moon. “I do.”

“Oh.” Nagisa curls his knees up to his chest and rests his chin atop. They sit like that for a while, with the wash of waves and sounds of the town behind them carrying on. “Even after everything?” Nagisa asks at last.

Rei breathes in deep, and inhales the scent of the sea. “I do,” he replies, and turns his head to smile at Nagisa. Nagisa doesn’t smile back though. He just frowns, and grips his arms around his legs a little tighter.

“It’s prefecturals tomorrow,” he says.

“I know.” They haven’t talked about it, not between the two of them, but Kou has been counting down the days at practice.

“Do you want to come? You don’t have to if you don’t want to.”

“I’ll come. I want to support you.”

“I’m not competing.”

“Then I’m there to support Haruka-senpai and Makoto-senpai. And to keep you company.” Rei looks back over at Nagisa and gets at least a small smile in return this time. “I told you that you were stuck with me.”

Nagisa huffs a laugh into his knees, glances shyly over at Rei, and puts his hands down on the sand so he can, slowly, inch his way closer to Rei, until they’re shoulder to shoulder. Rei watches as Nagisa’s hand settles in the sand, and can see more easily now how Nagisa’s face is pinched with worry even through his smile.

He wants to put his hand overtop of Nagisa’s, to assure him that it will be alright. That Rei will find a way to make it alright. But he doesn’t.

“It would be boring without you all day,” he says instead, and Nagisa smiles a little wider this time, and Rei hopes that maybe Nagisa understands that his words mean so much more than that.

 

***

 

Rei sits next to Nagisa on the ride to prefecturals. Nagisa falls asleep in the back seat against the window, in lieu of not having the option of Rei’s shoulder. Rei doesn’t think he would have minded, this time at least, if Nagisa had slumped over onto his shoulder. It would have probably been more comfortable for him.

The fact that’s his first thought ends up occupying a whole lot of the rest of his thoughts the bus ride over. It’s been only a few weeks since he came back, and everything is beginning to change, which is strange because he never imagined death to be such a dynamic experience. Perhaps first is the enormity of admitting that Nagisa is completely and wholly his friend. Rei can’t remember the last time he actually had someone to call his friend, but there he is, drooling a little against the window. Which Rei finds gross and yet somehow endearing. Why does he find that endearing?  

Nagisa had told him they’d become close after Rei joined the swim club. Well, he wasn’t wrong. There was just a slight hitch in the plan. Because now most nights are spent watching movies or reading books until Nagisa falls asleep, or sitting on the beach while the sky turns dark above them and Rei fights every urge in his body to take Nagisa’s hand in his own cold grasp.

He wakes Nagisa up with a cold hand to his arm, because Rule Number Two can be broken sometimes.

Rei doesn’t say it outloud, but it’s a good thing Nagisa decided not to compete. When he watches the breaststroke competition and compares it to Nagisa’s sloppy swimming he’s seen, Nagisa would have just looked foolish. He’s much safer up here in the bleachers, with Kou and Goro and Ama-sensei, watching.

Watching Makoto fail to qualify.

Watching Haru lose to Rin.

Rei doesn’t miss the way Kou and Nagisa both tense up at that, and the ride back to Iwatobi is spent in complete silence.

“I wish Rin-chan and Haru-chan could go back to normal,” Nagisa says quietly in bed that night, rolled right over on this side. “I hate this. It’s stupid. Why are they fighting even when they care about each other? What if...what if one of them got hurt and…” Rei waits for Nagisa to continue, but Nagisa just sighs and rolls over so his back is all Rei can see.

Rei lies on his back and stares up at the ceiling. What if one of them died, of course, is Nagisa’s train of thought.

Then there would be two ghosts walking about Iwatobi, and things would really get interesting.

He listens to Nagisa’s nightmares that night, the small sounds and rustle of sheets, and wishes so badly he still had a living body, so Nagisa wouldn’t feel this way. Everyone else too, of course. He hates the thought of his parents suffering. But here in the dark with Nagisa reliving Rei’s death over, and over, what Rei wants more than anything is to be able to hold his hand and hug him tight and reassure that everything is alright, it’s alright now. He wants nothing more than to be able to touch him.  

But that’s against the rules. Both the one written down on Nagisa’s sheet of paper, and the ones Rei keeps in his own head.

Maybe that’s the reason Nagisa had wanted them written down in the first place.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is part one of a massive section of Rei's POV, so I decided to split it up into two different updates.  
> Aaaand that update will be next Monday. Thank you for reading!  
> (tumblr plug: I've loved talking to people who came and saw me bc of this fic, so if you want to, I'm @pollyperks!)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (So ao3 hates me and deleted this chapter while I was trying to post chapter 6. Sorry for any confusion.) As always, thanks to everyone who read the last chapter and left kudos/a comment, it's all very appreciated! I hope you enjoy this chapter!

The next few weeks pass, and Rei isn’t surprised anymore to find that he falls into perfect rhythm with it. But there’s the question beginning to more insistently tug at his attention with each day that goes by: just what is his unfinished business here?

It has to be with Nagisa. It has to be. And Rei is sure it also has something to do with Nagisa’s happiness. Something to do with the way he shuts everyone out, the way he dreams of death every night. He’s struggling, that much is obvious. Could Rei’s purpose be to ease that struggle?

The problem, of course, lies in the fact that Rei is pretty sure 90 percent of Nagisa’s struggle lies in the fact that Rei is dead, and there’s nothing much he can do about that.

So he studies the other team members, for comparison. Makoto and Haru, at least, seem to be taking things well. They act pretty much the same as they had before Rei died, if perhaps a little strange around Nagisa, because none of the team knows how to act around him anymore. Kou seems to be trying to act happy enough for everyone, attaching herself to Nagisa whenever she can and talking cheerily as she searches his face for a reaction. She invites Nagisa out with her and Hana a few times, but Nagisa always declines. When Rei brings it up, Nagisa brushes the matter aside. “I’d rather spend time with you, Rei-chan!” Yes, that’s it. That’s the problem. The only time Nagisa really acts like himself is when he’s able to pretend that Rei never actually died at all.

But if Makoto and Haru and Kou are handling his death in a healthy manner, then what’s different about Nagisa?

Well, at least that answer is obvious. Nagisa is the one who let him drown.

Nothing much Rei can do about that either. So he’s stuck. Again.

*******

 

The summer festival takes place not long after prefecturals. When Kou invites Nagisa to go with her and Hana after lunch, Rei leans forward and utters, “Say yes or else,” right into Nagisa’s ear. Nagisa’s jumps a little, but nods and stutters that sure, he’ll go and yes, five o’ clock sounds fine. As soon as Kou has disappeared, Nagisa snaps his phone open and turns around to glare at Rei. “What was that about?”

“You should go,” Rei tells him, crossing his arms. “Do things. Have fun.”

Nagisa narrows his eyes. “Or else what?”

Rei shrugs. “I don’t know yet. But I’ll come up with something if you don’t go.”

Nagisa keeps his eyes narrowed, and steps right up into Rei’s space, and somehow even with his height he manages to be extremely intimidating. “You’re coming with me, right?”

“Of course!” Rei splutters on instinct, and Nagisa’s face instantly relaxes and he steps back.

“Oh. That’s alright then.”

Rei frowns. No it’s not alright. His efforts in trying to push Nagisa back into doing things with his other friends are completely thwarted if Rei ends up caving in whenever Nagisa asks him to come along. But he’s already said yes, and he’d feel bad backing out now.

Besides, he’d always enjoyed going to the summer festival.

So the day of the festival leaves Rei studying various corners of the room as Nagisa gets dressed in his yukata. Nagisa’s room is gradually beginning to look like Rei had first envisioned. A small but growing pile of dirty laundry in and around the general vicinity of the hamper. The chair from the desk dragged over so Nagisa could reach the highest shelves of his bookcase, and then left there. A pile of rented DVDs in a teetering tower by the bed. Nagisa is slowly forcing Rei through all movies that even mention ghosts, and Rei is beginning to feel very offended on behalf of ghosts everywhere.

But he likes the mess. Thinks that the room actually looks like there’s a living human being in there again.

It’s currently becoming even more messy as Nagisa gets dressed, since apparently the yukata was hidden beneath probably every single other piece of clothing Nagisa owns. “Okay, Rei-chan, you can look,” Nagisa says after an eternity and a half.

And so Rei turns away from the bookcase, blinks at where Nagisa stands there with arms held out to his sides for inspection, and very quickly turns back to the bookcase, biting at his tongue.

Okay, because, here is the issue: Rei has never had a problem appreciating the human form. In fact, he’d say he’s pretty indifferent to whatever gender that form happens to be. It was like with Haru, when he’d seen him dive into the pool that first time. Or the various actresses who have caught his eye across various movies. He’s never really bothered worrying about what that means about him or his preferences because he’d always thought he’d have many more years to figure out those feelings and which were attraction-based and which were not.

Except that what he feels right now has nothing to do with appreciating the human form. Instead, he’s left standing and staring and the only thought circling in his head is that Nagisa looks...

_Cute._

Which is not a word Rei has ever really introduced into his vocabulary when it comes to describing other people. But it’s the only word that comes to mind, with Nagisa in that polka-dotted teal yukata, hair still ruffled from the process of getting dressed. Cute. Cute, cute, cute.

“Rei-chan?” Nagisa asks, sounding slightly put-out, and Rei realizes he’s still staring intensely at the bookcase. He takes a deep breath and turns around.

“You look very aesthetically pleasing, Nagisa-kun,” he says, stammering just a little and knowing full well his face is going red.

“Oh thanks. You do too,” Nagisa replies instantly with a hop and a grin, and then pauses, and then the both of them are left standing there and Rei thinks that the shade of pink appearing on Nagisa’s cheeks might just be beginning to surpass his own.

Silence.

“Um,” Nagisa says, and stops.

More silence.

The buzz of Nagisa’s phone is what saves them. “Ahaha, it’s Kou-chan!” Nagisa says, way too loud to be casual, and turns away to answer the text. Rei goes to stare out the window and wonders why he can feel like his heart is beating two times too fast when he doesn’t even have a heartbeat anymore.

Nagisa seems content to let Kou and Hana drag him around the festival, with Rei trailing behind. He never really gets a chance to talk to Rei, not with the two girls around, and Rei knows he could say something, apologize for earlier perhaps and try to play it off as a joke, but maybe it’s best they both just pretend it never happened.

Aesthetically pleasing though, he thinks, looking down at himself, bare-chested and swimsuit clad, and that starts the blushing all over again. Had Nagisa really meant that, or was it just an automatic compliment? The way Nagisa had frozen up suggests the former, and Rei has to cover his face with both hands to think about how he’s been around Nagisa practically the entire day for weeks now while half-naked.

Nagisa spends most of the festival eating. Which Rei would have scolded him for before he died, but it’s a reassuring sight now. Nagisa has steadily started eating more and more and doesn’t look quite so shockingly skinny in his pajamas anymore. “Don’t choke,” is the one thing he orders while Nagisa wolfs down a candy apple. Nagisa rolls his eyes dramatically and whispers, “Yes Mom.” And then takes the whole rest of the apple in one bite. Rei swats a hand through his head. There goes Rule Two.

They run into Makoto and Haru, and Makoto and Kou have a frantic conversation about how Haru and Rin had ended up practically colliding with each other and had both stormed off in a huff after a pretty epic shouting match. Nagisa leans in to hear just a bit, and frowns, and Rei remembers what Nagisa had said, about how much he hated Haru and Rin fighting like that.

Nagisa sidles up to Haru while Makoto and Kou whisper, and offers Haru some of his cotton candy. Haru blinks down at Nagisa, and Nagisa smiles with his hand held up towards Haru’s mouth, and Rei thinks that’s got to be one of the first genuine smiles Haru has seen on Nagisa for over a month now.

And Haru smiles back, one of those rare smiles of his, and takes the stick of cotton candy, holding it to his mouth to take just a tiny little bite. He swallows, and points to his nose as he looks down at Nagisa. “You have cotton candy on your nose. And…” He gestures around his general mouth area.

“If you’re not sticky you’re not eating it right,” Nagisa tells him firmly, and Haru eyes him up before taking another bite, this time coming away with just a tiny little fluff of cotton candy on his nose. Nagisa laughs, and Haru smiles again before wiping it away and handing Nagisa his cone back.

Rei grins, crossing his arms in front of his chest, and is prepared to settle in when he feels a sudden little tug, deep in his stomach. He frowns. It’s almost like a stomach ache, except he hasn’t eaten in weeks and there’s absolutely no reason for his stomach to hurt.

He glances over at Nagisa, who’s still standing with Haru, and decides he can disappear for a minute or two without it being a major disaster. He slips away from the stalls, and goes to stand on the grass, out of the light.

Is it even like a stomach ache? The pain is almost pointed within him, like following its guidance will ease it. Like a tug. Rei holds his hands to his stomach and slowly moves them to where the tug feels hardest. But as soon as he think he’s found it, the tug is coming from a different direction.

Like a pull.

_“It always pulls us back, in the end, to make sure spirits don’t stay past their time.”_

Rei freezes in place, hands still on his stomach. That’s what the man had said. The Netherworld would pull him back once his purpose was complete.

But his purpose isn’t complete. He knows that. And the tug isn’t very hard, and in fact, he can already feel it fading away. He whips his head around to stare at Nagisa, who is standing there smiling with his teammates. His purpose isn’t complete, no.

But maybe he’s moving in the right direction?

What had caused that tugging sensation then? Rei doesn’t know.

Nagisa has started looking around for him, completely failing to be discreet about it. He’s still tucked up against Haru’s side, even as Haru starts to move along the stalls. Haru has a hand hovered over Nagisa’s shoulder, Rei notices. Like he’s protecting him, even though there’s nothing here at the festival that will hurt him. And Nagisa hasn’t noticed yet.

The whole team has been like that though, Rei realizes. There’s no way Nagisa has been pleasant to be around, ever since Rei died, and yet no one on the team casts him out for it. Instead they invite him to movies and keep a protective hand above his shoulder and forgive him without words when he storms away or barely talks at all.

They’re a team. They’re a team and Rei didn’t really think of it before but maybe team can mean the same thing as family.

Nagisa really needs to learn how to look around without drawing everyone’s attention.

“You lost something?” Haru asks, and Nagisa gives one of his loud nervous laughs, just as Rei slips back among the booths and squeezes his way between festival-goers until Nagisa can see him again. He waves.

“Nope!” Nagisa says, and Rei hurries over to walk on Nagisa’s other side, so he doesn’t pull away from Haru.

“If he was fighting with Rin-san, I bet Haruka-senpai wouldn’t mind being distracted,” Rei mutters, leaning down to speak directly into Nagisa’s ear. Nagisa nods, and then beams up at Haru. “Let’s win stuff, Haru-chan!”

And he’s off, leaving both Haru and Rei behind.

“Oi, Nagisa…” Haru calls after him, before shaking his head and hurrying after where Nagisa is fast disappearing in the direction of the game booths.

That night, Rei and Nagisa don’t sleep side by side, because there is a giant pink bear plush between them. The grand prize of the night, handed to Haru and then just as quickly hoisted onto Nagisa, who was delighted.

Nagisa pokes his head over the bear and lays his head down, draping an arm over the bear as well to use it as a pillow. He just lies there smiling at Rei until Rei gets embarrassed and flustered, automatically crossing his arms over his (apparently aesthetically-pleasing) chest. “What is it?”

“I had fun tonight,” Nagisa murmurs, an element of surprise running through his voice.

The heat in Rei’s face cools down. He smiles up at Nagisa. “I’m glad.”

“Thank you for making me go,” Nagisa says, and reaches his hand out, making weak little sounds when his arm doesn’t reach all the way. Rei knows what he wants though, and raises his hand until he can touch their fingertips together, just barely. “Thank you, Rei-chan.”

“You’re welcome,” Rei tells him, and Nagisa smiles as he shakes his head. “What?”

“There are…” Nagisa yawns, and draws his hand back. “There are some thank-yous you don’t need to say anything back.” He smiles again, and closes his eyes, apparently committed to falling asleep on his bear.

Rei waits until Nagisa’s breathing evens out. And then turns to study the ceiling.

Some thank-yous that don’t need anything in return, huh?

“Rei-chan?” Rei jumps a little. Apparently Nagisa hadn’t been asleep.

“Yes?” he asks, and Nagisa presses his lips together before sitting up. “Would you come outside with me?”

Rei sits up as well and raises an eyebrow. “Any particular reason?”

Nagisa hops off the bed and moves quietly towards the door. He turns a little at Rei’s question, one hand going to hover over his chest as he frowns a little, and then he shakes his head and smiles. “No. But please?”

So Rei follows. Nagisa sneaks them out back, and flops down into the grass, warm summer air finally subsiding into something cooler with the night dark around them. Rei follows suit, and lies down next to Nagisa, and now there’s isn’t a gigantic pink bear between them.

He likes it better this way.

Nagisa is just lying there, staring upwards. Rei looks over at him and whispers, “What are we doing?”

“Looking at the stars,” Nagisa whispers back.

“Why?”

“Because. They’re funny.”

Rei blinks, and waits for Nagisa to elaborate, but no explanation comes. “I don’t understand. How are stars funny?”

A small, wry smile appears on Nagisa’s lips. “Because they’re just always there, aren’t they. No matter what happens, the stars are always the same, looking down at you.”

Astronomically not true, which Nagisa would probably know if he paid attention in class, but Rei doesn’t bring it up. Or maybe this is a sort of statement broad enough Nagisa has decided to ignore seasonal rotation. Rei can’t be sure.

“Why is that funny?” he asks instead.

Nagisa laughs a little, and brings a hand up to his nose, and that’s when Rei notices the tears, falling quietly down the sides of Nagisa’s face. “Because everything can change, and they’re still up there. Just watching.” He sniffs, and shuts his eyes, and laughs again, and Rei just watches the tears drip off his face into the grass. Tears again. When finally Nagisa had been smiling and laughing just hours ago.

“You know…” Rei murmurs, rolling over and placing a hand on Nagisa’s chest, close as he can. “That’s not quite true. Stars...they change all the time too. Stars get born, and they grow…” Nagisa opens his eyes and stares at Rei plaintively, waiting for something of meaning. “A-and they die too,” Rei says, and smiles shakily. “And we don’t even know it. There are stars up there that are born, and we can’t see their light yet. And there are stars that have died, and we still see their light, because no one knows they’ve died yet.”

Nagisa sniffs again and wipes at his eyes. “So they’re like you.”

“What?” Rei takes his hand from Nagisa’s chest as Nagisa rolls over to prop his head up on one arm.

“You’re still shining,” Nagisa says, “Even though you’re dead. Except I’m the only one who can still see your light.”

“Nagisa-kun…” Rei can’t come up with anything in response. Just lies there, as Nagisa smiles at him, that sad smile of his with tear tracks still shining on his face. Shining with the lights of the city and the moon and the ever-changing stars.

“I guess you’re my own personal starlight, Rei-chan,” Nagisa tells him, and rolls back over to stare at the stars.

And Rei stares at Nagisa, out of the corner of his eye while he lies next to him on the grass until Nagisa gets tired and they sneak back inside.

Stares and wonders if Nagisa knows just how those words shake him, down to the very core. More than any slip-of-the-tongue compliments ever could.

*** 

 

Time passes, and the heat of summer begins to subside, foretelling autumn.

Nagisa has started staying awake through classes. Or most of them, at least. Which means Rei takes to wandering the school while Nagisa sits in class, since by now it’s become a habit for him to sit there and just stare at Nagisa, which becomes a lot more awkward when Nagisa can actually catch him doing it. So Rei says his goodbyes to Nagisa in homeroom and heads off on his own until lunch.

He’s learning to cope without his glasses very well all things considered, which is actually helped along by the fact he’ll just walk through anything that gets in his path, but he still can’t see the board in classrooms unless he stands up right close to it, which just feels awkward, even if no one can see him. He tries a few times to sit on lessons anyways, but forgets to watch himself and gets walked through by the teacher, which curbs his interest in using the afterlife to continue his education.

So he explores. He sits in on band practice. And an art class. He goes to a higher level math course and for that actually does stand right up close to the board to see, mostly because he wants to test his preexisting knowledge against what he might have learned in coming years given the chance.

He’s not as naturally gifted at it as he’d hoped he’d be, and Nagisa had put up with his moodiness until they got home that night, and then he hit Rei though the head with his physics book, a blatant disregard of rule number two.

So Rei stands over him the next day with arms crossed and foot tapping as Nagisa gets his exam results back. Nagisa takes one look at the numbers before thunking his forehead into the desk so hard there’s a red spot there for an hour.

“Did you try to fail on purpose?” Rei asks, because he’s still feeling annoyed about the physics book, and Nagisa turns his head to glare.

“Well sorry if I can’t be some super smart genius like you.”

“You’re still in class, shush!” Rei tells him, as the girl one seat over starts giving Nagisa a strange look. So Nagisa just turns his face back into the desk until class is dismissed.

He’s sulky all the way up to the rooftop.

Ever since the festival, Nagisa has slowly been opening back up to the others, smiling when they talk and even giggling a little when Makoto spills milk all over himself. It’s not back to normal, not by a long stretch, but lunches do seem slightly less empty. But today Nagisa is scowling at everything and eats his bread looking like a very angry hampster and the dynamic has returned to extremely awkward.

“It isn’t their fault you didn’t study,” Rei tells him, sitting back to back with Nagisa and watching the birds pinwheel overhead.

“Mmmph.”

“And being mad at me won’t help either.”

“But it’s you—” Nagisa starts with a raised voice, turning towards Rei, but then he clamps his hands over his mouth and slowly turns back around. Everyone else is staring at him, and Rei watches them over Nagisa’s shoulder, frowning. What did he do to make Nagisa fail all his tests? It’s not _his_ fault.

“Are you okay?” Kou asks at last, straw from her milk still in her mouth.

“I’m fine,” Nagisa mumbles, scrunching his body up.

She scoots over closer to him anyway, and when Nagisa doesn’t pull away, puts an arm over his shoulder. After a second, he leans his head against hers and sighs.

“I—” Nagisa starts after a moment, but she shushes him.

“It’s okay. You don’t have to tell us.”

Nagisa is still for a moment, and then nods. After another moment, he raises his hands to take another bite of his Iwatobi bread.

“How is it _my_ fault you failed?” Rei asks indignantly while they’re walking up to Nagisa’s house that night.

“I didn’t say it was your fault,” Nagisa mutters, kicking against the ground.

“But—!”

“Rei-chan!” Nagisa stops walking and fists his hands in his hair, tight enough to hurt. “Can we drop it, please?” He drops his hands, letting his arms dangle uselessly at his side, and then sighs dramatically. “Don’t make that face.”

“What face?” Rei raises his hands and feels his cheeks. “I’m not making a face.”

“Yeah, you were.” Nagisa repositions his backpack and starts walking again, passing Rei by. “Your face before you start lecturing me. Don’t. Please.”

Rei frowns and puts his hands on his hips, but Nagisa doesn’t turn around and he doesn’t stop walking, so Rei has to give up and run to catch up. “I have a face for that?”

Nagisa snorts. “Of course you do!” But his voice has lost his anger, and after a moment, he turns to Rei with a greatly exaggerated expression of haughtiness and exasperation. “Nagisa-kun!” he cries, in what he considers an imitation of Rei’s voice, “Swimming is highly unbeautiful! And you drool on me when you sleep! This school-issued jacket was in prime mint condition, and now is soiled with your spit!”

“I don’t!—”

“The swimsuit is to blame!” Nagisa announces to the world, gesturing to his waist, voice still in that terrible Rei-imitation. “With a proper aerodynamic swimsuit I would be an Olympic champion already!”

“Nagisa-kun…”

Nagisa sniffs and turns away, and pretends to adjust invisible glasses, which is when he cracks and stuffs a hand over his mouth to stop from giggling. “Nagisa-kun, these ghost movies are...highly exaggerated and I would...like you…” He gives up and starts to laugh, gasping between his words. “You to write...a letter to...the producers…”

“I never said any of that!” Rei huffs, as Nagisa forms his fingers into circles and holds them up as glasses to his face. “And I haven’t even had my glasses for months!”

Nagisa blinks up at him through his finger-glasses. “Yeah, but you still try to adjust them all the time.”

“Do I.”

“Yep.”

“Will you stop that?”

“Nope.” Nagisa holds his fingers around his eyes all the way home.

Rei makes a face when Nagisa abandons his backpack right after entering his room. “You could study, you know. For once.”

Nagisa rolls his eyes and flops onto the bed, already reaching to undo his tie. “Why would I do that?”

“To pass.”

“Eh…” Nagisa waves a hand through the air dismissively. Rei goes over and crawls across the bed until he’s hovering over Nagisa, staring down at him upside down.

“Then, just for the record, I told you to study. You failing has nothing to do with me.”

Nagisa gets the tie undone and tosses it to the floor before glancing up at Rei. “Do we have to keep talking about this?”

“Yes! If you’re going to blame me…”

“I’m not blaming you, okay! I was just angry, and I got angry at you because you were being annoying.” Nagisa narrows his eyes and Rei does the same.

“I was not being annoying!”

“Yes you were.”

“Was not!” He doesn’t know why he’s getting so riled up over this. But Nagisa is doing the same, voice raising with each word. Any minute someone is going to wonder why he’s yelling to himself in his bedroom and poke their head in. He sighs, and sits back, so they’re no longer face to face. “Maybe I was being a little…”

“Annoying?” Nagisa offers, and Rei swats at his shoulder, watches Nagisa jump at the sudden cold.

“Not annoying. Patronizing. I was being patronizing. I’m sorry.”

Nagisa rolls over and props his chin on his hands, and looks up at Rei with a rueful smile. Doesn’t say anything, not until Rei begins to feel awkward and starts to rub at the back of his neck. “I’m sorry too,” Nagisa says at last. And then, after another pause, “I don’t like fighting with you.”

“That was hardly a fight,” Rei tells him, remembering the epic shouting matches he’d heard between Katsumi and various girlfriends over the years.

“Okay.” Nagisa lets his chin drop to the mattress. “Arguing then. I don’t like being mad at you.”

Rei shifts backwards until he can mirror Nagisa’s position, his legs hanging off the end of the bed as they get face to face once more. “I don’t like it either. But we do live together. We’re going to be mad at each other sometimes, right?”

Nagisa pouts but nods after a minute. “Yeah. But…”

Rei tilts his head to the side. “But what?”

Nagisa shakes his head a little and sighs. “I can’t be allowed to be mad at you, is all.” And then he slides off the bed completely. Rei hears the thud of his body hitting the floor.

“Wait…” He crawls across the bed until he can peer over the other edge where Nagisa is sitting. “What does that mean?”

“Nothing, Rei-chan,” Nagisa drawls, and then starts to get undressed from his uniform.

He never does explain what he meant. Not when Rei asks him later that night. And not when he asks the next day either.

Just another thing he can’t explain about Nagisa. The more he gets to know him, it seems, the less he’s able to understand.

*******

 

Rei tries to be more supportive, the next time exam results are handed back. “It’ll be fine!” he assures Nagisa, but Nagisa just makes a face and crams the paper into his backpack as soon as it’s handed to him. Doesn’t even give Rei a chance to see.  

“If I just don’t let my parents see, then I’ll be fine,” he mutters, and Rei rolls his eyes. They both know Nagisa’s parents are going to find out at some point. Trying to hide this from them is just forestalling the inevitable.

Nagisa is quiet during lunch again, eating in silence while Rei sits a little off to his side. He’s probably going to be like this all day, and Rei doesn’t really want to bear the brunt of any bad mood Nagisa wants to carry around with him, so he doesn’t follow Nagisa back to class. He considers following Haru or Makoto around, but it feels like such a violation if neither of them know he’s there. So, eventually, after wandering the whole school for a few hours, he ends up sitting by the pool, feet in the water. The tingly sensation isn’t as noticeable when he’s touching water, he’s noticed, probably because he could reach through water while he was still alive anyways. He blinks down at the sunlight reflecting off the water, and then slowly lowers the rest of his body into the pool. If he’s going to be in a bathing suit for eternity, he might as well swim.

His movements don’t make any motions in the water. Impossible to swim, without the water to push against, but he walks through the pool, feeling the cool embrace without being bothered by it.

The water looks so innocent here, just like the water down by the peer, where he and Nagisa had sat in the sand. Rei frowns, and bites at his lip, and finally takes a deep breath out of habit before sinking beneath the surface.

He opens his eyes once he’s submerged, and waits for the sting but it doesn’t come. He looks all around, in a light blue world shimmering with sunlight.  

It’s beautiful. He settles gently at the bottom of the pool and blinks slowly, breathing out. No bubbles escape his mouth, and he breathes in just as easily. The sounds of the world are muffled, surrounded only by water and sunshine. This is what water is.

What had it been that drowned him then? He tries to remember what it had felt like, to feel water in his lungs and throat with eyes stinging and darkness dragging him down. And yes, those memories are still there. It still hasn’t been very long, after all. But the fear in those memories has been removed. How can he fear water when it surrounds him like this?

He stretches his arms above his head and stretches upwards, and then settles back down. He’s staying easily at the bottom of the pool, like a rock. So, sort of like how he was when he first joined the club. He’d never really taken the time to appreciate how the water felt, making space just for him and welcoming him warmly.

Is this how Haru thinks all the time?

He thinks he could stay down here for hours. Maybe he will. He lets his head drop back, eyes closing. Yes. Maybe he’ll just stay down here for a while. Quiet. Soft. Safe.

Someone screams.

Rei jerks his head up, completely startled by the sound, no matter how muffled it was. He can’t see a thing, not down here at the bottom of the pool, and he stands up quickly, blinking in the sun and peering up at the side of the pool. His eyes are out of focus, and all he can make out for a second is blobs of color, but the blobs quickly resolve into people. Red and brown and yellow and black. The swim team.

Nagisa is collapsed on the side of the pool.

Nagisa? Was Nagisa the one who screamed?

Rei starts walking for the side of the pool, quick as he can. Makoto is at Nagisa’s side, letting Nagisa hide against his shoulder as he shakes and Makoto employs his big-brother skills, making hushing sounds and assuring Nagisa that everything’s alright. Rei can’t see Nagisa’s face, can’t make eye contact, can’t even call for him above the din of Makoto’s voice and Kou on Nagisa’s other side, shaking him and asking what’s wrong. Haru stands above them, peering into the pool. His eyes go right through Rei as he searches for whatever it was that made Nagisa scream so awfully as that.

Rei reaches the side of the pool and clings to it, insides twisting as he watches how Nagisa trembles and his breath comes in sharp gasps. He presses into Makoto like he wants Makoto to completely absorb him, to hide him completely. “What’s wrong? What’s wrong?” Kou asks, again and again.

“Should we get Ama-sensei?” Makoto asks, and Haru makes that ‘I don’t know’ sound employed by completely bewildered people everywhere, still searching for the pool for some sort of clue.

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa whispers, and moves until his face is visible within Makoto’s hug, and he opens his eyes, staring straight at Rei. Staring straight at Rei, but not quite seeing him. “I-I-I thought I saw Rei-chan in the water…”

Rei, sitting at the bottom of the pool, not moving.

Oh.

Oh no. “Nagisa-kun!” One arm buckles beneath him as he hauls himself out of the pool, but he manages to be there in less than ten seconds, reaching through Makoto’s arms to lay his hand to the side of Nagisa’s face. “Nagisa-kun…”

“Nagisa-kun…” Kou is muttering, looking extremely worried, and Makoto is telling Haru to go fetch Ama sensei and everything is much too loud and busy and Rei doesn’t know how to handle any of this. “Nagisa-kun, I’m right here. I’m right here,” he says, ducking his head in close. “I’m right here, I’m sorry.”

But Nagisa just shakes his head and closes his eyes once more. “No, you’re dead!” he shouts, and Rei jerks backwards, landing on his rear and almost falling back into the pool. “You’re dead!” Nagisa screams again, voice torn and ragged and eyes wild as he throws himself in Rei’s direction, barred by Makoto’s arms. Rei flinches, and clamps his hands over his ears. He doesn’t want to hear Nagisa yelling at him like that. This isn’t Nagisa. This isn’t his Nagisa.

“Nagisa!” Makoto grabs Nagisa tighter and shakes him gently. “Calm down!”

“Mmmph!” Nagisa dives to hide his face in Makoto’s chest once more and Rei can’t watch this anymore. He scrambles to his feet and he runs. Runs straight through the gate and onto the street. Someone on a bicycle goes right through him but he doesn’t care.

He’s dead. He’s dead.

Sometimes, he thinks he’s starting to forget that fact. He’s playing at being alive again, but it’s all fake. He’s dead. He drowned. He drowned off the coast of an island he can’t even remember the name of anymore and he’s dead.

He’s dead.

He’s dead and it’s so _unfair_. He’s only fifteen. He had too much life ahead of him to die! Just where would he be, if Nagisa had just swum a little faster? Sitting in class, taking notes, getting ready to ace his exams, swimming right now in that pool perfecting his butterfly stroke. Maybe they would have even placed at prefecturals, made their four-person team a well oiled machine. He’d be in that pool, right now, and Nagisa would be laughing instead of shaking like his whole world is coming down and Rei would be there with his _friends_ and be _happy_ …

It’s so unfair and he can’t take it. He wants to scream until his voice withers away. Run, run in any direction because it doesn’t matter, he’ll just run and run and run and run because there’s no heart beating inside him to give out anymore. There’s nothing to stop him, nothing to stop him at all.

So he runs. Closes his eyes and runs. Off down towards the peer. He knows he’s missing stuff, with blurry vision and now tears on top of it, because he can feel it when he runs right through something, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t care anymore. He only feels fuzziness anyway. Because he’s not real. He doesn’t belong here anymore. He was stolen too soon out of this world and now he’s not even a part of it anymore.

He’s maybe halfway down to the water when the sob tears up his throat, and he stops, gasps in air he doesn’t actually need, and keeps going, keeps running, even as the tears stream from his eyes and the sobs choke his throat and burst into the air as ugly explosions of sound that nobody hears but him. He shoves his hands over his ears so he doesn’t have to hear, but he can still feel the burn in his throat. He keeps running, because at least that’s something he knows how to do. He doesn’t know how to help Nagisa. He doesn’t know how to help his parents. He doesn’t know how to help anyone he cares about move on. He doesn’t know how to be dead.

_He doesn’t want to be dead._

He finds himself running through the fields that the train passes by, the fields he’d jogged through every morning. It’s getting late in the summer and the flowers are beginning to lose their brilliant colors, but he can’t care. He runs through them, feeling blossoms pass through his feet as he goes, and remembers how once a boy in a red tracksuit had followed him down these paths and told him he looked beautiful and changed everything.

He collapses to his knees and sits there surrounded by fields of flowers as the tears stream down his face and he tries to stuff the sobs back inside his mouth. Is this where it had started? The events that would lead to his death? When Nagisa had said those words that made Rei’s face feel hot?

No. It hadn’t even begun here. It had begun the moment that moment that Nagisa waited for him at the train stop. No, not even then.

It had begun with the first words Nagisa had ever spoken to him. Even with Rei’s instant brush off, that had been the beginning. It all began with Nagisa.

And he’s dead now because of that beginning. What if he’d never met Nagisa at all? Sitting in class, taking notes, getting ready to ace his exams, stretching his muscles out to practice the pole vault. Maybe he could have even placed at competitions, given enough practice. And he’d be on the track right now, silent and alone because making friends had never been his priority and neither had happiness.

But he’d be alive.

Just a few happy weeks as part of a team he never really truly belonged in, in exchange for his life?

He clutches at his hair and screams, bends over and screams into the ground with the knowledge there’s only one person in the world who can hear, tries to let everything go, tries to scream until the heaviness in his chest dissipates, but it doesn’t work. Maybe there’s water still stuck in his useless lungs, weighing him down. But he screams, and screams, and screams, and presses his palms into his eyes, willing them to stop producing those awful, obvious tears that will leave his eyes red and swollen, but it doesn’t work. And so he falls into silence, as the day turns to dusk and turns to night, and it would be so easy to let himself sit here, to lie down in the dirt and let the seasons pass over him. Fall will be coming soon, and the flowers around him will wither and die, and then the snow will arrive, and he’ll just keep lying here, a new permanent and invisible fixture.

Finally, he releases the grip on his head and breathes in deep as he closes his eyes and tilts his head back. And there are the stars.

Those changing stars.

He hiccups another cry, and tries to laugh a little, wiping at his eyes. Stars that die and are born and nobody notices, not until the light reaches Earth after millions of years.

No matter what happens, the stars are always the same, looking down at you.

If there’s anyone in the world who might understand how he feels, it must be Nagisa. Who relives that night over and over again in his nightmares, and falls apart at the sight of Rei underwater.

Nagisa might not be a ghost, but maybe some of Nagisa died that night too.

They’re quite a pair, they are, he thinks, as he stares upwards until his chest has stopped heaving, his eyes stopped streaming tears. Can the stars still see him too? Even now?

He should be getting back. But, as he looks around, it looks like he’s managed to get himself pretty much lost. He stands up, and sighs as he casts his eyes around for a familiar landmark. The glow of the town is the only thing he has, so he starts off in that directions, swinging his steps to be slower and wiping at his eyes. He’s not exactly eager to face Nagisa after this. And he still needs time to think. About everything.

Being dead is so complicated. So complicated and wrong and unfair.

But eventually his steps reach the town, and from there he knows how to find Nagisa’s home. It takes him another two hours, with the way he keeps stopping to look out towards the ocean, or pausing to look through shop windows, all closed up now. But he does reach the Hazuki home at last, and walks through the front door. He stops in the hallway, all littered with shoes, wondering if he should go into Nagisa’s room or wait in the kitchen or something until morning. But being afraid to deal with Nagisa won’t get him anywhere. They’re stuck in this together. They need to be able to rely on each other.

And maybe it’s okay to need. To need someone, right now. He’d never imagined needing someone like he needs Nagisa now, when the semester started, but now, even with how nervous he is to face the aftermath of what happened this afternoon, he needs Nagisa. Needs his smile and his tears. Needs the way he stares at Rei and says the most ridiculous things that leave Rei turning pink. Needs the person who can still hear his voice and see his face and calls Rei his personal starlight.

He needs Nagisa. And maybe that’s alright.

So his feet carry him through the wall into Nagisa’s room. It’s dark inside, and Rei can make out the lump of blankets that is Nagisa, and he sneaks his way around to his side of the bed, wondering if he’ll be able to find Nagisa’s face.

Turns out, he doesn’t need to bother. Nagisa sits upright at the sound of Rei’s footsteps. “Rei-chan,” he croaks.

“Nagisa-kun,” Rei whispers, and moves around to the bed. “I-I-I…”

Nagisa’s face is illuminated only in moonlight, but Rei can still make out his frown. “You’ve been crying,” he says, reaching a tentative hand out and pointing at Rei’s face.

There’s no use in denying it. But. “So have you.”

But Nagisa won’t let him change the subject like that. “Why were you crying?”

Rei goes silent. What is he supposed to say? List every single little thought that’s been going through his head that last bunch of hours?

“You’re up very late,” he says instead, and watches the motion of blankets as Nagisa shrugs. “You should get more sleep.”

Nagisa sighs, and wraps the blankets a little tighter around himself. “Why were you crying?”

Rei pauses, and then says, “Because I made you upset.”

“You shouldn’t cry over that,” Nagisa mutters. “That’s a stupid reason to cry.” And then, after a moment of silence, he says, “I wasn’t sure you were coming back.” His voice breaks on the words, and Rei blinks and stares, and tries to make out Nagisa’s expression as well as he can, but all he really wants to do is envelope Nagisa in his arms and never let go.

“But I promised, didn’t I?” he says instead, scooting a little closer. “I promised I’ll tell you goodbye before I leave.”

Nagisa nods, and turns so Rei can no longer see his face. “You better keep that promise,” he says after a minute.

“I promise,” Rei says.

“And I’m…” Nagisa pauses, and the blankets rustle as he readjusts his body. “I’m sorry for yelling at you. By the pool.”

Rei shrugs. “It’s alright.” It isn’t really, but he won’t say that because Nagisa won’t understand. That the reason it isn’t okay doesn’t lie in Nagisa yelling at him. It’s in the way he’d seen, for the first time perhaps, how completely fallen apart Nagisa has become.

“And I’m sorry for...for being this way,” Nagisa adds after a minute, voice going wobbly. “I’m sorry…”

“Hey, hey…” Rei tries to reach out, but Nagisa turns away. “What way?” Rei asks. “What do you mean?”

Nagisa turns so he can see Rei once more, face all scrunched up, and then he throws himself down onto the pillows, disappearing completely. Rei rolls his eyes and reaches a hand forward, reaches right through the blankets until he feels Nagisa’s warmth. Nagisa gives out a yelp and shoot back upright.

“Blatant violation of Rule Two!” he says, pointing a finger accusingly at Rei.

Rei crosses his arms. “Answer my question then.”

Nagisa glares at him, and then throws his hands up. “Fine! Not like you can’t tell anyways!”

“Shh, not so loud!” Rei cautions, and Nagisa lowers his raised hands a little, like that’ll somehow help. He sighs deeply, and lets the blankets drop from over his head to his shoulders. He tilts his head back to stare up at the ceiling. “I haven’t been doing great. Since you died.”

“Yeah, I think I got that part.”

Nagisa lowers his gaze and looks at Rei with plaintive eyes. “Really? I was trying…”

“Trying what?”

Nagisa sighs again, and brings both hands up to hide his face. “I didn’t want you to know. Because it’s so unfair. You’re the one who died and here I am being sad…I’m making it all about me when it should be all about _you_ and I’m so sorry, Rei-chan. I’m a huge mess and I’m so sorry.” He shakes his head in his hands, and then peers through his fingers. “I’m so selfish. I want you not to be dead anymore, Rei-chan. I want that so much.”

Rei sucks in breath, and feels the tears return to his puffy eyes. “Nagisa-kun…” His lip is already quivering while he sits as close to Nagisa as he can, wishes so badly he had a physical arm to wrap around him. That he had a physical body for Nagisa to hold. “I wish I wasn’t dead too,” he says, and Nagisa gives out one of those blubbery, half-crying laughs.

“I’m sorry, Rei-chan. If I had just…” He trails off, and sighs again, and then shakes off the blankets and turns on the lamp on the bedside table. In the light, it’s easy to see that he’s been crying just as much as Rei has, but he switches on that smile like nothing is wrong at all. “Want to see something really awful?” he asks as he walks over to his desk.

Rei frowns. “What?”

Nagisa tugs a few pieces of paper out of where they were hidden in a textbook. “My test scores.” He sits down in his chair and makes it spin around, placing a piece of paper down on the desk with each spin, and then just spinning, faster and faster as Rei gets up off the bed to look at the scores. He has to bend down to make out the numbers exactly. “You need ghost glasses,” Nagisa mutters from his chair. Rei ignores him.

The scores are actually atrocious. He winces. Yeah, he doesn’t think this is going to go over well with Nagisa’s parents.

“What are you going to do?”

Nagisa hums, and kicks against the floor to get his momentum up again. “Go to the moon?”

“No, really.”

Nagisa sighs, and slowly lets the chair stop spinning. “I don’t know. My parents are going to be so mad. They’ll probably kill me and bury my body in the yard. Or make me quit swimming. Or something else horrible.” He leans against the back of the chair with a dejected face.

“Nagisa-kun…” Rei starts, but then Nagisa sits bolt upright.

“Or this could be the perfect chance to test out your ghostly abilities!”  

“No,” Rei says immediately.

“Aww…” Nagisa whines, pouting a bit. “You haven’t even heard the plan!”

Rei shakes his head and crosses his arms. “No.”

“Rei-chaaaaaaan…” Nagisa starts spinning very slowly once more. “You have to listen before you say no.”

“No.” Rei narrows his eyes in Nagisa’s direction. “I know what your plan is already.”

“How can you—?”

“It’s blood on the walls, isn’t it?”

“I—”

“Isn’t it?”

“Well, yes, but…”

“No.”

“Rei-chaaaaaaan…” Nagisa reaches out his arms and makes little grabby motions in Rei’s direction. “Just a little blood on the kitchen wall, no big deal!”

Rei throws his arms up and then settles his hands on his hips. “First off, I have no idea how I’d even begin to write in blood. And what sort of thing would you want me to write anyways?”

“Oh, something like ‘THIS FAMILY WILL BE ETERNALLY DOOMED IF YOU DO NOT FORGIVE NAGISA HIS TEST SCORES...’”

“No!”

“But—!”

“No! No. I want that as an actual rule. Written down. It goes on the list. Now.” Rei sniffs. “No blood-writing. At all.”

Nagisa tells him that if he wants Rule Number Three written on the Official List, he’ll have to do it himself in blood. Nagisa writes it down anyway after Rei gives him the silent treatment for five minutes.

They crawl into bed, and Nagisa turns of the light, and Rei decides it’s okay to lie a little closer tonight. The big pink bear now sleeps in the corner of Nagisa’s room, holding his backpack right now. Nagisa doesn’t seem to mind Rei moving closer, and turns until they’re nearly forehead to forehead. “I don’t like Rule Three.”

“I know you don’t,” Rei tells him fondly. Nagisa yawns and snuggles his face into his pillow.

Rei doesn’t know if Nagisa is asleep yet or not, but he raises a hand and skims it down Nagisa’s cheek. “Nagisa-kun?” he whispers.

“Yes, Rei-chan?” Nagisa asks without opening his eyes.

Rei knows Nagisa completely managed to change the subject on him again. They’d been having a serious conversation and then five minutes later Nagisa had him all worked up over blood-writing. All so Nagisa wouldn’t have to keep talking about the actual problem.

“Would you like to make it a rule?”

“Make what a rule?”

“That I have to say goodbye before I leave?”

Nagisa opens his eyes and frowns, but there’s no anger to it. “No. No. That’s not a rule.”

“Why not?”

Nagisa grins. “Because. It’s okay to break the rules.”

“Yes. I’ve noticed you do that.” Physics notebook.

Nagisa wrinkles his nose. “You do too, Rei-chan!”

“I—” No, he does, he’ll drop it. “Okay, yes. We both break the rules sometimes.”

“Exactly,” Nagisa tells him. “So you saying goodbye, that’s not a rule.” He wriggles a little closer, so they’re nearly pressed together completely. He closes his eyes once more. “That’s a promise. You can’t break a promise.” And that’s all he bothers saying, relaxing into the bed and falling asleep within minutes. Rei shuffles so they’re nose to nose and smiles sadly at Nagisa’s sleeping face.

“I promise,” he breathes.

 

***

Rule Number Four comes as almost an immediate response to Rule Number Three, the moment Nagisa gets home from practice the next day. Nagisa is sluggish and unresponsive all day, but Rei knows that’s more due to lack of sleep than anything else. Lunch is extremely awkward, to say the least. It turns out that Ama sensei had been called the day before, and she’d actually been the one to take Nagisa off to the side while ordering the others to get back to practice as usual, doing breathing exercises with him until Nagisa had calmed down. “She wants me to see a counselor,” Nagisa admits on the train ride to school. “But I don’t think it would do much good, do you? After all, the first thing to tell them is that I have a ghost.”

Rei agrees that that might not be the best way to start the conversation.

Nagisa falls asleep almost as soon as he sat down at his desk. Oh well. Rei’s empty desk has finally been filled, so he leans against the wall and watches Nagisa’s back raise and flatten as he breathes. It’s easier from back here to keep an eye on him. And Rei knows that logically it would be alright to go back to the art class and see how the new assignment is going, or to go listen to the orchestra. But he doesn’t want to leave Nagisa behind. Not now, not with the fright of yesterday still so vivid inside him. So he waits out the morning and watches Nagisa sleep, and sleep, and sleep.

He wakes him up for lunch.

“Could you please buy something other than the Iwatobi bread?” he pleads as Nagisa grabs the money from his pocket.

“Sugar gives you energy, Rei-chan,” Nagisa tells him primly, and buys two. They go up together to where the rest of the swim team sits, and, without saying anything, Nagisa plops down and starts eating. Rei stands behind him, watching the reactions of everyone else. All of them have their eyes on Nagisa, and all of them wear vaguely anxious expressions. Rei wonders if yesterday had been the first time they’d seen just how broken Nagisa was for them too.

After a few minutes of silence, Kou breaks it. “Are you doing okay?”

“I’m fine Kou-chan.” Nagisa takes another bite.

“But—”

Nagisa swallows, looks around at the other three, and then says in a very low voice, “I really don’t want to talk about it, alright. Please?”

And Haru—thank goodness for the existence of Haruka-senpai—just nods and turns to Kou. “So, what kind of funding will Ama sensei be able to provide?”

Kou launches into full-on managerial speech mode, and Rei slips down beside Nagisa. “You know they would listen, right?”

Nagisa nods, just a little.

“So why don’t you talk to them?”

Nagisa shakes his head, just a little.

“You should talk to them.”

Again, the shaking.

“Nagisa-kun…”

“Aaahh!” Nagisa cries out as he stands up. “I need to go...call someone.” And off he runs across the rooftop. Rei looks back at the wide eyes of the swim club, and sighs before following Nagisa to the edge of the roof as Nagisa grabs his phone from his pocket.

“Rei-chan, please. Just…”

Rei joins him, hanging his legs over the edge of the roof. “Just what? Just sleep in your bed every night while I know how unhappy you are?”

“I’m not unhappy!” Nagisa practically shouts, and whips his head around to stare into Rei’s eyes. “I’m happy when you’re here with me!” It’s last night’s conversation, rearing it’s head, unsaid words spilling out.

“People are staring,” Rei says quietly, even as he feels his face heat up, and Nagisa glances back over the rooftop and hunches his shoulders up a little more. But he right away goes back to staring at Rei, emotions on his face changing faster than Rei’s blurry vision can keep up with.

“I’m happy when you’re here,” Nagisa says at last, voice very soft and Rei wishes Nagisa wouldn’t look at him with those seeking eyes.

Because Rei needs Nagisa. And Nagisa, probably, needs him back, just as badly, bound together as they are in this. But the thought of it just makes Rei ache. They’re only first-year students, no real life experience to speak of. They’re not old enough for a need this great, that’s strong enough to span between this world and the next, and yet here they are. Trapped, because in the end Rei will always have to leave, and there’s nothing he can do to stop that. Even now, where he sits, when it feels like it can be like this forever, Rei knows now he’s just fooling himself. Playing at being alive.

It’s what he should tell Nagisa. That putting his happiness in Rei is only going to hurt in the end, that it would be best to try to reverse any emotional attachment they may have had. But his tongue is treacherous and answers before his sense can kick in.

“Then I’m here,” he murmurs, and Nagisa sighs deeply before leaning a little closer to Rei’s side, so that if Rei were able, he could lift one arm and wrap it around Nagisa’s shoulders. He can’t, of course, so he doesn’t. But the idea remains.

*******

 

They don’t talk much the rest of the day. Rei thinks part of that is definitely Nagisa still being tired from barely sleeping last night. But maybe another is the fact more words are useless right now. It’s clear now, just how things have been falling apart, and Rei knows it’s just as clear he has no idea where to start stitching things back together. He’s the one who dies, and then has to come back and pick up the pieces himself? Talk about unfair.

But he gets Nagisa home.

And as soon as they open the front door, there are his parents, lying in wait.

“Nagisa, we need to talk.”

And when Nagisa’s parents say something like that, Rei always takes it as his time to leave. But there’s something in their tone this time, and he ends up stopping in the hallway, feeling like a spy and a sneak and a terrible friend, but one who is still able to hear the conversation in the kitchen.

“—spending so much time alone these past few weeks, and we’re starting to worry.” That’s Nagisa’s mom.

“You seem happier, and we’re very happy for that,” his dad adds, “But spending all your time locked in your room watching movies? That’s not healthy. And now these test scores…”

“We know Rei’s death is still very difficult for you, sweetie, but sometimes things happen and we have to learn to get past them.”

Rei stares at his feet. Get past them. What does that even mean? Accept that it happened? Or try to forget? Both at once?

How is Nagisa supposed to get past it when Rei is right at his side?

And then it’s Nagisa’s dad speaking again. “We’ve looked into hiring a tutor, but it will require you to quit the swim club.”

Rei is expecting a burst of protest from Nagisa’s side, but there’s nothing but silence.

“Nagisa?” his mom asks after a moment of waiting.

“I’m going to bed,” Nagisa says, and his chair screeches back. Rei thinks about walking through the wall to Nagisa’s bedroom to pretend he didn’t hear, but decides that would be even worse than sticking around in the first place. Plus, he’s not sure he can do walls, and getting caught at trying to cover up the fact he was listening in would be even worse. Nagisa looks up at him when he turns the corner, and just lifts one shoulder in a mini-shrug before heading for his bedroom.

Nagisa casually trips across the room and faceplants on his bed as soon as the door is closed. After a moment, he reaches out to grab a pillow, and folds it over his head. Rei stands by the door and watches. Watches the movement of Nagisa’s breathing, the way his fingers clench and unclench in the pillow, the tiny movement of one foot in miniature circles.

Five minutes pass before Rei finally unsticks his feet from the ground and goes to sit next to Nagisa on the bed. One hand automatically reaches out to rub at Nagisa’s shoulders, but he remembers in time to stop.

“They’re gonna make me quit the swim club,” Nagisa says after a moment.

“But it’s your swim club,” Rei tells him softly. “It was your idea. And Kou-san and Makoto-senpai and Haruka-senpai...they all need you.”

Nagisa snorts out a laugh. “No they don’t. You see what they’re like. All waiting for me to…” He stops, and pushes his face harder into the mattress.

Rei slowly lies back down until he’s right beside Nagisa, only looking up at the ceiling. “It’s because they love you, you know.”

Nagisa shifts, and lifts one hand to peer at Rei from beneath his pillow. “What?”

Rei keeps staring up at the ceiling. “They love you. They hate seeing you suffer. The swim team. Your parents.” He breathes in deep. “Me too. We all hate seeing you so sad.”

“I told you that I’m happy when you’re here!”

“And what will you do when I’m not here anymore?”

Nagisa’s head shoots upright, and Rei waves his hands back and forth. “I’m not saying that I’m leaving. What I’m saying is that one day, I’m going to have to. The Netherworld is going to pull me back. And how will you be happy then?”

Nagisa just stares at him until Rei finally takes his eyes off the ceiling, and feels his stomach drop when he sees how Nagisa’s lip is wobbling. “I-I-I don’t know,” Nagisa whispers. “I don’t know.”

Rei turns over onto his side and sighs deeply, shaking his head a little. “Then why...why won’t you let them help you? They love you and…” And it’s a permanent sort of love. The kind of love Rei won’t be able to to provide.

Nagisa’s eyes drift down to the mattress, and he takes one hand off the pillow to pick at the threads in his sheets. “I’m just...really, really glad you came back, Rei-chan.” He sniffs. “I’m just…” Another sniff. “I’m just so happy I get to see you again. I...I needed to be able to see you again…” His voice starts to get strangled. “I can’t…” He huffs and hides underneath the pillow once more, and Rei just aches to touch him. To hold him. To tell him that it’s okay, it’s okay.

But all he can do is place his hand atop Nagisa’s on the pillow, until Nagisa peeks out at him once more. “I’m happy I get to see you again too,” Rei murmurs, scootching closer. “It’s been...it’s been so much more than I ever expected.”

They stay like that, eyes locked, as Rei’s fingers play against the warmth of Nagisa’s hand. Finally, Rei smiles, and tilts his head forward until they’re back almost forehead to forehead. “Swimming made you happy right?”

Nagisa pauses, but nods eventually.

“Then I don’t want you to lose swimming.” He takes a deep breath, and thinks maybe this will bring everything full circle. “You look beautiful when you’re swimming.” Even that awful, splashy, half-drowning swim. It doesn’t matter. Because it’s Nagisa, and if he can be happy while swimming, then it’s the most beautiful thing Rei can think of.  

Nagisa snorts. “You’re lying. I’m a mess.”

“No, no, I’m being serious,” Rei insists. “I really think you look beautiful when you swim.”

He thinks he looks beautiful now, with red-rimmed eyes and blotchy face.

Which are bad thoughts, _dangerous thoughts_ , but he can worry about that later.

“I’m going to tutor you,” he says, “I’m going to tutor you and your grades will get better and you’ll be able to stay on the swim team!”

Nagisa makes a face. “It won’t make much difference. The season is almost over.” He drags the pillow off his head but stays flopped out on the bed, right next to Rei.

“But you need to stay on the team for next year,” Rei tells him firmly. “And that starts now. I know you had homework in languages.”

“Rei-chaaaaan,” Nagisa whines as Rei sits up, “No…” Rei looks back down at Nagisa, who pouts and slumps his shoulders, looking so small and tired in the mussed up sheets.

When will Rei become immune to these tricks?

“Okay, tomorrow then,” Rei accedes with a roll of his eyes, and Nagisa sighs in relief before completely perking up and sitting upright.

“Okay! Movie time!”

“No, not movie time.” Rei stands up and crosses his arms. “You need to go eat dinner and talk with your parents. Tell them you will improve your grades on your own by the end of the semester, so they’ll allow you on the swim team next season.”

Nagisa flops right back down. “Rei-chan…”

Rei shuts his eyes and points towards the door. “Go.”

Nagisa changes out of his uniform, dawdling as much as he can before Rei finally badgers him out the door.

Rei sits on the bed when Nagisa leaves, and then slowly collapses onto the mattress. The sheets are all bunched up and poke through him, but he’s slept here every night and he’s used to it. There. Tutoring. Finally something he can start doing that feels constructive. It’s almost definitely not his true purpose, because he doubts he’s here among the living to improve Nagisa’s test scores but at least it’s something.

He can hear a meal start in the kitchen, marked by Nagisa’s sisters starting what must be some sort of argument, and he smiles, before remembering how silent his own apartment had been. He should return there soon. How awful a son is he, avoiding his own parents like this?

He’ll deal with it later though. Because it’s hard to keep worrying when Nagisa is finally beside him in bed once more, getting another movie set up for them to watch. He hums as the opening music starts and turns to Rei with a frown. “This is in English. Will you be able to watch subtitles?”

Rei can just about manage stationary words in bold print without slipping on his ridiculous goggles, but he nods anyways, because otherwise he’s sure Nagisa will spend the whole time translating for him. And movie nights aren’t about the movies, not for Rei. Have never been about gathering ‘valuable ghost intel’ either.

Nagisa is asleep within five minutes anyway.

Rei just sighs, and lays his chin on folded arms, and smiles at the way Nagisa’s breath makes his hair flutter. He could lie here all night and watch Nagisa and be completely happy, he thinks, which is a new thing, for him. He can’t imagine feeling this way for anyone else.

He does end up watching a bit of the movie though. There’s some sort of pottery scene at the beginning which makes Rei turn pink, and then the man gets shot. Pretty straightforward.

Until suddenly there’s some woman who can see the dead man, and Rei scrunches up his eyes, and tries to read along with the subtitles, filling in with what English he knows. It’s hard, and a lot of what happens seems pretty irrelevant, until suddenly the ghost man is invading the woman’s body and kissing his girlfriend/wife/whatever she is and that’s when Rei gets very interested.

The movie ends with a little bit of blood, and the credits roll, and eventually the laptop goes to sleep, but Rei can’t stop thinking about it. There. That was it. Not quite exactly his situation, but close enough. The idea of being able to be sensed, the idea of unfinished business. Sure, this man had to avenge his murder and say goodbye to the person he loved but…

He rolls over and stares at the ceiling, fingers laced across his stomach. He knows that Nagisa is his unfinished business. Has known for a while. But what has he done about it? He’s just finally decided to tutor Nagisa, but other than that he’s just been hanging around Nagisa’s shoulder. Hasn’t even gathered the courage to tell Nagisa about the dreams. Hasn’t done anything to help Nagisa get past his death. If anything, he’s making it worse, acting like they’ll be able to go on like this forever.

He needs to get serious about this. He knows that. Knows that deep in his essence, or whatever it is he’s made of.

But something is holding him back.

When he completes his unfinished business, he’ll have to return to the Netherworld. And he doesn’t want to go.

He lies in the morning and says the movie was no good, and he’s not quite sure why he does that. And that evening, despite all Nagisa’s moans to the contrary, Rei begins to tutor him in math.

And Rule Number Four gets written on the official sheet of paper: Nagisa must begin to pass his exams.

Four little rules, and Rei can’t believe that’s all they have. If he’d thought about living with Nagisa while he was still alive, he would have imagined a million rules going onto that sheet of paper. But no, just four little rules. Rei sleeps on the bed. No touching without permission. No writing in blood. Nagisa passes his exams. Four little rules and a promise. Rei says goodbye before he leaves.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Some of you left the nicest comments ever that got deleted when I accidentally deleted this chapter, but I want you to know I read them all and might have cried a little bit they were so kind. So there's that. Thank you so much.


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really really sorry about not keep to schedule and not publishing last week! (I was feeling a bit under the weather) But thank you so much for your kudos and kind comments! I hope you enjoy this update!

Naturally, the first thing to living with a ghost is to figure out exactly what that ghost is capable of. For scientific reasons. Which is why Nagisa has rented approximately 80 million ghost movies and tried to take mental notes on all of them. Except the boring ones. He figures Rei can take notes on the boring ones, because Nagisa has the tendency to fall asleep if there’s no blood ten minutes in. None of the movies yield any results besides making Rei look slightly pale, which is a feat, considering Rei is at least partially transparent and it’s difficult to make out the details of his expressions sometimes.

For the first few weeks though, what Nagisa knows is that Rei can make him _feel_ again. Like the empty cavern his chest had become is actually filled once more. He’s got purpose again, a real reason to want to open his eyes in the morning, because each time, the first thing he sees is Rei.

And it’s more than just feeling. He feels happy. Which is something he’d kind of given up on, before Rei came back to him. But of course Rei makes him feel other things as well. Like scared, the time Rei didn’t come back until late in the night and Nagisa thought Rei might have left him for the Netherworld. And embarrassed, which isn’t an emotion Nagisa experiences often, but had most definitely experienced the night he let his mouth run loose and parrot back that Rei looked ‘aesthetically pleasing’. Nagisa can admit he’s pretty forthright about things but he’d like to think he has _some_ subtlety left in him. And he feels angry, even, which is something he’d never felt towards Rei when he was alive, but then, he didn’t spend nearly every moment of every day with an alive Rei following him around and occasionally sticking his nose in where it doesn’t belong.

But mostly, he begins to feel happy again. Even with the swim team falling apart and his grades falling apart even quicker, he’s happy. He holds onto the fact that Rei is back and is there and _isn’t leaving him_ and never lets that go. It’s the thing that’s going to pull him out of this, after all.

He turns seventeen with the summer beginning to die away, and Rei spends at least half the day apologizing for not being physically able to give him a present. Nagisa does manage to stop himself from saying that it’s enough for Rei to be there, but it’s a close thing. The words always seem to bubble up to his tongue, anxious to be let loose into the world, and it’s gotten him in hot water more times than he can count. So he has to be extra careful with Rei, because Rei is _important_. Even when he’s being extra careful, he knows the words get out sometimes anyways, by the way Rei turns red and can’t look Nagisa in the eye.

It’s a work in progress. A slow work in progress. Maybe in fifty years he’ll finally reach the point he’s got total control over everything that comes out of his mouth.

He tries to think of what Rei would have gotten him anyways. Books, probably, if Rei was alive. Boring books, since a Rei who was alive wouldn’t have spent nights reading Nagisa’s favorites, and wouldn’t have known about his love of falling into fantastical worlds. He tries to think of other things, but Rei just has an air about that exudes ‘gifts books’ stronger than almost anyone Nagisa has ever met, besides his one aunt that lives in England who he’s met only twice and who supplied half his existing bookshelf.

Kou organizes the birthday party at the park. A picnic. The swimming season will be over soon, so it doubles as a birthday party and one last hurrah for the swim team before the cold weather shuts them down for the year. Initially, Nagisa wants to ignore it altogether, until Rei lectures him on how disrespectful that would be. Nagisa hadn’t meant to skip out on the birthday celebration part. He just wishes they wouldn’t bother celebrating at all, and him refusing to come would ensure that. But Rei doesn’t understand, so he responds to the text by telling Kou he’ll be there.

They’re supposed to meet up with the others at the park for lunch so Nagisa takes his time with breakfast. His parents and Mizuki already said their rushed goodbyes to him this morning, so it’s only Chiasa, Nagisa, and Rei in the household. Chiasa comes into the kitchen while Nagisa is eating and collapses into the chair Rei is occupying. Rei squawks and falls over onto the floor while Chiasa continues applying her eyeliner, using a little compact mirror. It’s good she’s focused on that because Nagisa has his hand slammed over his mouth so he doesn’t laugh and spray bits of egg everywhere as Rei glares up at him from where he’s sprawled.

“Am I even?” she asks after a moment, while Rei picks himself up off the floor and goes to lean against the counter with a sour expression. She faces Nagisa and blinks. Once. Twice. Perfect eyeliner. Nagisa sends her a thumbs up and swallows.

“Looking good!”

She flashes a smile and closes the mirror, setting that and the eyeliner aside before she reveals the little brightly-wrapped package. She slides it across the table, and Nagisa pushes his breakfast away to take it. “You didn’t have to get me anything.”

“Of course I did! Open it, okay?”

He hates to tear the shiny paper away, but Chiasa is practically bouncing in her seat, so Nagisa gets a hold of one edge and rips.

“A new phone case!” He glances up at her, then back down to the wonderful, colorful case still protected in its box. “I needed one!” He finishes unwrapping the box and fumbles to get the case out on the table.

“You’ve been carrying that broken one with you for weeks,” Chiasa explains, and Nagisa nods as he pulls his phone out and places it on the table as well. The case is still chipped, from the forever ago when Rei first appeared by the pool. The new case is much flashier than the old, with bubbles and stripes all in bright pinks and yellows and purples and Nagisa loves it already.

“Thank youuuu…” he says, stretching his arms across the table until Chiasa takes his hands, smiles, and squeezes.

“Happy birthday.”

Rei takes his spot back in the chair as soon as Chiasa disappears out the kitchen, still looking disgruntled. But predictably, the first thing he does is look at Nagisa fitting his phone into the new case and open his mouth to say, “I’m sorry I didn’t get you anything.”

“That’s physically impossible for you to do, Rei-chan,” Nagisa reminds him (for the fifth time this morning) as he snaps everything into place. “It’s okay.” He holds his phone up for inspection. “It’s cute! It’s cute, right?”

Rei nods distractedly, and Nagisa sighs before dragging his breakfast back over so he can finish eating.

He gets dressed in his favorite t-shirt and colorful socks. Add the shorts and scarf and hat and he knows he looks a little garish but doesn’t care. His sisters had bullied him into the worst combinations of clothing when he was little, so it’s their fault more than anything if he likes clashing patterns and colors now. Rei, diplomatically, doesn’t comment, but just starts to lament some more about not being able to get Nagisa a present as Nagisa pulls on his shoes. “It’s fine, Rei-chan. Rei-chan. _Rei-chan_. It’s _okay_.”

Rei sighs, shoulders slumping, and then looks down at Nagisa. “You should grab a sweater, just in case.”

Nagisa makes a face. “It’s hot out!”

“It might storm later. I don’t want you to catch cold.”

It’s easier to obey than to argue, so five minutes later they’re walking down the street side by side, and Nagisa has a sweater tied around his waist.

Maybe Rei wouldn’t have gotten him books. Maybe Rei is a sock-giving person. Nagisa can see that, with Rei’s everlasting fretting that Nagisa is going to catch a chill. Boring, plain socks to keep his feet warm that Nagisa would have had to act thrilled about. Maybe it’s best that Rei can’t give him anything, really.

It’s a Sunday, so the train is a bit cramped, and Rei presses himself as close to the wall as he can while Nagisa takes the corner seat. The park is near the Matsuoka residence, so the train ride is a little longer than they’re used to, and it’s loud on top of that, so Nagisa doesn’t bother taking his phone out to start a conversation. He just walks his fingers up the wall until he can poke one through Rei’s arm. Nagisa’s not very good about following Rule Two. But Rei just smiles and moves his arm until their fingers intersect. Nagisa bites at his lip and looks away, even as he feels Rei slide their hands further together. He loves this, loves it when he initiates it, loves it even more when Rei does. He’s not sure why he loves it so much, this illusion that he and Rei might be holding hands if he ignores the chill in his fingertips. Okay, that’s a lie. He has an inkling of an idea of why he loves it, but it’s an idea that’s only going to bring trouble. It’s only going to bring trouble and it’s only going to hurt. So for now he enjoys these little touches. It’s why he’s so bad about following Rule Two, even if Rei never really seems to mind anymore. Because whenever he touches Rei, it makes his heart swell up into his throat to the point he’s barely able to squeeze words out. Maybe that will be the trick to finally reign in those troublesome words that always try to escape. Make it so they can’t slip past his heart.

Luckily, when the train stops, Rei takes his hand away, so Nagisa is able to catch his breath and wave hello to Makoto and Haru, who must have been waiting at the station for them. He’s still not quite sure how to act around Makoto and Haru. The night of the festival, for the first time in weeks, he’d felt like he’d actually been able to interact with them properly, without that intangible barrier he’d built around himself, and he’d thought that maybe things would only get better from that point on. But then they’d both been there, when he’d completely broken down at the side of the pool, and suddenly everyone could see exactly how fractured he was and still is, how hard he’s been trying to keep it together. He can still remember how tight Makoto had held him, like he could shield Nagisa from the entire world plus some, and feels completely humiliated at the memory of how he’d cried and cried with Haru and Makoto and Kou watching him helplessly. And Nagisa knows all three of them are looking for any opportunity to start that discussion, to try to get him to open up, but he’s fine, really. He’s fine. None of them know he has Rei now. He’s not alone, no matter how things appear.

But it means spending time with the team is a careful tiptoe around conversations he doesn’t want to have, and sometimes that tiptoeing means he has to be silent altogether. He _knows_ they love him, that they’d be willing to listen, but no amount of Rei’s coaxing is going to convince him. He’s not ready to talk about it. With anyone. Not even with Rei. He already relives that night often enough in his dreams. Night has become a bag of mixed emotions for him, since Rei came back. He still dreads the nightmares, but those moments he spends falling asleep with Rei beside him are some of the most peaceful Nagisa has ever experienced. His favorite is when he holds a book open for Rei to read, and can watch Rei squint and move his eyes carefully across the page before giving that little nod to indicate he’s ready for the next one. With the lights on, Rei looks almost completely solid—unlike in the dark, where he blends in more with the shadows than a true person would—and for a while Nagisa is able to pretend that Rei is alive and safe beside him, that when he wakes in the morning Rei’s touch will be warm and his body solid.

Of course, Rei is neither warm or solid, which is why he hangs back as Makoto and Haru take their places on either side of Nagisa, heading in the direction of the park. It’s not a far walk, and Nagisa is content to let it pass in silence, tilting his head back and letting the sun warm his face. He tilts his face back a little further since he can feel Rei’s presence right behind him, and grins when Rei leans over him with a puzzled expression.

“You should watch where you’re going,” Rei tells him, right before Nagisa almost trips over an uneven block. Makoto catches him by his shirt before he can fall. “Told you so,” Rei says, as Makoto asks Nagisa if his neck is bothering him.

Kou runs across the grass to throw her arms around Nagisa in a hug the moment she sees them coming. If Nagisa is trying to tiptoe his way through interactions with the team, she’s the one most likely to push him over. But it’s okay. Nagisa doesn’t mind the hugs, or the way she squishes up close to him, or squeezes his hand. He’s always done the same to others in the past, and it does feel nice to have the warmth of a living human body against his own sometimes, though he’ll never admit that aloud to Rei. He hugs her back, and she whispers how she’s glad he came. He thinks Kou probably knows how much he wants to say no to every invitation she gives him. What she doesn’t know is that Rei always takes her side, the traitor, or he wouldn’t be here right now.

Ama-chan sensei arrives just a few minutes later, completely out of breath and carrying a huge cooler of food. “I tried to think of everything Nagisa-kun would like,” she says, and smiles gently at him. Another person who’d been so patient and calm until Nagisa had been able to breathe properly, and had even given him a ride home that horrible afternoon. Giving and giving and giving when Nagisa hasn’t been offering anything in return, just silence and crying fits. Why are any of them still bothering with him? He doesn’t understand it.

Rei sits on the grass on Nagisa’s side where Kou hasn’t glued herself. “You look sad,” he says after a minute, and Nagisa isn’t sure if it’s an observation or an admonition. Either way, he shouldn’t look sad, not now. He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, before opening his eyes once more and forcing the smile on his face as Makoto and Ama-chan sensei begin to pass around plates.

The food is, admittedly, amazing, and Rei starts cautioning Nagisa to slow down five minutes in. Nagisa shushes him discreetly. It’s his birthday, and if he wants to eat himself into a sugar coma that’s his decision. Kou eyes his plate and states that he’s lucky the swimming season is coming to a close or she’d have the whole team on a meal plan.

“Please don’t do that!” Makoto pleads, but she’s already got that gleam in her eye and Nagisa groans at the thought of what next spring will bring.

“You’re going to make yourself sick,” Rei says, and Nagisa waves a hand for him to be quiet. There is cake to be had.

The grass is soft, the food is good, the sun is warm, and his friends fill the air with light conversation. Nagisa keeps expecting it to turn back to the need for a fourth member before next season, but the topic never rises. Which makes everything even better, because even Rei has relaxed into the grass, eyes closed and hands cushioning his head, and Nagisa feels all the better for knowing Rei is doing alright. The park is filled with other people taking advantage of the weather—people with dogs, couples walking hand in hand, children playing over near the trees. Nagisa takes Rei’s initiative and lies down while Makoto and Haru and Ama-chan sensei get tangled up in talk about shutting the pool down for winter. It’s peaceful, down here in the grass, and Nagisa lies there with Rei on one side and Kou on the other and thinks that maybe this is okay. Maybe it was okay to come.

He might fall asleep for a while, laid out in the sun, because next thing he knows, Kou is poking him in the stomach to get him up. He sits up and yawns, stretching his arms above his head and already beginning to feel uncomfortably full. Maybe Rei had been right.

“We got you a present,” Kou tells him with a small smile as she whips out a red-wrapped parcel with a yellow bow atop.

“You guys are way too nice to me,” Nagisa tells them as he takes the present. “You didn’t have to.”

“Of course we did,” Kou says with a wave of her hand. They still really didn’t have to.

It’s a book. Nagisa almost begins to laugh, before he realizes it’s not just a book. He sucks in his breath and snaps his head up, and the carefree atmosphere has completely evaporated. Kou shuffles in closer, and he notices Ama-chan sensei doing the exact same thing. Rei sits up next to him and looks over his shoulder.

“Oh,” Rei says, and Nagisa turns the cover over, runs his fingers over what he finds there.

“They were mostly taken with my phone,” Kou says quietly, “So I’m sorry they’re not great, but we thought…”

“Thank you,” Nagisa says, voice cracking. He rests a fingertip over the edge of a photo, covered by the page protector, and trails it down to where he and Rei are standing in the pool, side by side, Nagisa laughing and Rei looking flustered. The next picture, all four of the boys captured together on the boat that would take them to the islands. And the next, same setting, but Nagisa has disappeared out of view and Rei has just turned to go after him, the look of exasperated worry already on his face.

Just pictures that Kou snapped on her phone. Some of everyone. Some of Nagisa. Some of Rei. Some of him and Rei. A couple of Haru and Makoto that Nagisa is pretty sure were taken for Kou’s fascination with muscles, but pictures, nevertheless.

The first tear lands on the page protector and drips onto the grass. He raises his head and smiles as large as he can before anyone can get the wrong idea. “Thank you. This is...this is…” He rubs a hand across his eyes. “The best ever…”

“Oh, we didn’t mean to make you cry…”

“They’re happy tears, happy tears, Kou-chan!” He gets folded in her embrace anyways, and doesn’t fight it, just keeps flipping pages of the little photo album. “I didn’t have any good pictures of him.”

“These aren’t what I’d call ‘good pictures’,” Rei mutters, leaning over and frowning at the shot of him bending over in a speedo. “That’s really not a flattering…”

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa mutters in warning, figuring he can get away with it now, and Rei shuts up.

“Yeah, I tried to find as many of Rei-kun as I could,” Kou says, hooking her chin over Nagisa’s shoulder and settling more comfortably against him. “I know it’s not a fun present but…”

“It’s the best present in the world,” Nagisa tells her, and glances up at Makoto, Haru, and Ama-chan sensei. “Thank you.” He rubs his hand under his chin to catch the tears before they drip down. He won’t break down this time. “The very best.”

Kou hugs him a little tighter and Nagisa closes his eyes, breathes out, and hugs her back, rocking from side to side just a little. She sniffs, and Nagisa muffles a laugh, sniffing himself before warning, “Oh, don’t you start crying too.”

“I’ll cry if I want to,” she mutters rebelliously into his shoulder.

They all help to clean up, except Rei of course, who is being very quiet and out of the way. Nagisa gets one last hug from Kou before he thanks everyone and heads back towards the train station. It’s gotten later in the afternoon, and the sun is still warm on Nagisa’s face as he walks with the photo album held tight to his chest. He’s okay with not talking, and Rei doesn’t seem about to break the silence, so Nagisa spends the train ride going through his photo album, smiling at the pictures Kou had managed to take.

Rei is quiet for the rest of the evening, in fact. The only time he speaks up is when Nagisa is having dinner with his family, telling Nagisa he shouldn’t eat so much, since he already had a large lunch. Nagisa decides to ignore him.

A bad decision, as it turns out, and Rei lies extra close to him that night while Nagisa moans and clutches at his stomach.

“Remind me not to do that next time,” Nagisa begs, and Rei huffs, seemingly over his quiet spell.

“Like you’ll listen.”

Nagisa moans again for effect. “I’ll listen, I promise!” He rolls over onto his back and pushes the sheets back down to the end of the bed, hoping the cooler air will help him feel better.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t—” Rei starts again for the thirty thousandth time today, and Nagisa cuts him off.

“It’s fine, Rei-chan. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine. You don’t need to get me anything. It was...it was a good day.” He rolls back over and smiles at Rei, even with his stomach still aching. “It was a good day, really.” He thinks for a second, and then decides this is safe enough to say. “Besides, the best present was pictures of you and look—” He blinks and makes a clicking sound with his tongue before opening his eyes wide as if in shock. “A picture.” He does it again. “Another picture!” This time, it’s of Rei giving him the most exasperated look. Blink, click. “Another one!”

Rei chuckles, and Nagisa feels a cold finger flick his nose as he blinks again. “You are ridiculous.”

“And you don’t need to worry about getting me a present. Really really.” Nagisa opens his eyes and smiles at Rei, hoping he understands, just a little, what Nagisa doesn’t dare say aloud.

Rei studies him for a minute, and Nagisa lies there and lets him. It’s important for Rei to be able to do this, he’s realized, to assess the situation before thinking up what to say. The complete opposite of Nagisa. After a moment, Rei’s face relaxes, and his eyes scrunch a little at the corners as he smiles in return. “Okay.” He tilts his head forward a bit, and Nagisa mirrors the movement, until their foreheads nearly intersect. Another quirk of Rei’s, initiating this. But Nagisa really likes this one, maybe even more than touching fingers. Even when he knows Rei is really just taking the chance to study him close-up. It’s what Rei needs to do, after all, and Nagisa almost feels like it’s Rei watching over him, like this. Like some sort of angel, instead of a ghost. It makes him feel safer, falling asleep with Rei so close. Even if he wakes up every morning with nightmares fading away into the back of his mind, he’s able to open his eyes and know that Rei has been there with him, all night, maybe not alive but still there, and the nightmares don’t seem quite so bad in hindsight.

“If you’re sure,” Rei says after a few minutes, back on this whole present business, and Nagisa sighs and flops back over onto his back. He doesn’t know why Rei is taking this so seriously.

“Yes, Rei-chan! Yes, I’m doubley sure. Tripley sure. It’s fine, it’s fine, it’s fine!” He stretches his arms and legs out and sighs, the pain in his stomach subsiding somewhat. At least he doesn’t feel like he’s going to be physically sick anymore.

“Really?” Rei asks at last, voice very soft, and Nagisa closes his eyes and breathes in slowly, exhales even slower, before flipping over and scooting until they’re forehead to forehead once more. He opens his eyes and waits until Rei meets them. “Rei-chan. Please don’t worry about things like this. It’s silly.” He grins. “Besides, you’ve put up with me for weeks and weeks now. I should be giving you a present instead.”

He means it as a joke, but Rei frowns immediately. “Nagisa-kun!”

The tone of his voice makes Nagisa flush, and he starts to turn his head towards the ceiling, but the chill touch of Rei’s hand on his cheek stops him. Not physically, of course, but he follows the guidance of Rei’s back down until Rei is the one to trap him with his eyes. “Nagisa-kun, I want you to take me very seriously when I say…” Rei trails off, and his mouth gapes open as he stares at Nagisa, unable to come up with the right words. Rei can’t come up with the words and Nagisa has an overabundance. What a pair they are.

“Does this mean I don’t have to take you seriously ever?” Nagisa asks with a soft smile after a moment of silence, giving Rei an out.

Rei sighs fondly and shakes his head a little as he lifts his hand away from Nagisa’s face. “Do you ever take me seriously to begin with?”

Nagisa makes a ‘maybe’ motion with his hand and Rei snorts. Nagisa grins and settles into the mattress. But Rei is still making his ‘slightly troubled’ face, so Nagisa mutters into the pillow, “You just would have gotten me socks anyway.”

“Hmm?”

“Socks. Boring socks. That’s what you would have given me as a present. White, probably, because you hate color.”

Rei flicks his nose again. “I do not hate color! And I wouldn’t have gotten you socks either!”

Nagisa rolls until he’s on his stomach, face cupped in his hands. “Then what would you have gotten me then?” He takes a deep breath and adds, “If...if you were alive, and we didn’t know each other like this, what would you have gotten me?”

Rei blinks up at him before copying his position and frowning at the headboard. “Books, maybe,” he answers at last.

“You are so predictable, Rei-chan.” Nagisa yawns, and drops his head back onto his pillow, snuggling into it. “Today was good. Today was a great day.” He sighs, and rubs his stomach with one hand. “Except right now. Right now is not great.”

Rei shifts closer until their knees brush together. “Go to sleep Nagisa-kun,” he says fondly. “You’ll feel better in the morning.”

Nagisa nods and closes his eyes obediently, and can feel the way Rei keeps watching him. But it’s not creepy, not at all, not ever. Rei is watching over him, and he feels so safe beneath his gaze. And suddenly things are better than great.

Things are perfect.

Another present Rei gives him, without knowing he gives it at all.

Another reason for Nagisa’s heart to swell in his chest and those dangerous, dangerous thoughts to fill his head, even if the words won’t come out.

 

***

 

Summer passes into fall, and then fall grows cold, the leaves turning red and golden upon the trees. The pool gets closed down, much to Haru’s disappointment, and Nagisa’s grades begin to climb upwards, meaning his parents relent on the whole tutor business. The leaves crisp, and then flutter down to the ground, and Nagisa loves the crunch of them beneath his feet when he walks with Rei to school and back. Rei’s bare feet pass right through the leaves, and Nagisa kicks them up in front of him, so they flutter back down to the sidewalk just as he and Rei pass through. More than once he arrives at school with leaves in his hair, which Rei lets pass without comment. Without swimming to keep them occupied, Rei and Nagisa take to more walks along the peer, or simply wandering the town until it begins to get dark. Nagisa buys himself a couple new scarves and makes sure to wear one every day so Rei doesn’t fuss about him catching cold. Rei points out one he thinks will compliment Nagisa’s eyes, and immediately goes pink, which is a good thing because Nagisa’s heart rate would suddenly be able to break the sound barrier and he knows he’s turned red in the cheeks as well as he adds the scarf to his basket. It’s his favorite to wear, out of all of them.

In the mornings, Nagisa wakes up still feeling tired but with all the blankets wrapped around himself like a burrito, which sort of makes up for it. Rei is usually watching him when he wakes up, even though he looks away the moment Nagisa makes eye contact. Generally, Nagisa just buries his face back in his pillow to sneak in a few more minutes of toasty wonderfulness, but one morning in October after a particularly cold night he pokes his head out of the covers as always, and catches Rei’s eyes with his. Rei starts to look away, and Nagisa rolls across the bed until he’s right next to Rei. “You sure you don’t get cold?” he asks. Rei has explained it to him before, how he feels the sensation but isn’t bothered by it, but Nagisa worries sometimes it’s just Rei trying to be stoic.

And Rei shakes his head, just like expected. “I can’t even use the sheets, remember?”

Nagisa still feels guilty about stealing them. What if Rei did actually use sheets, and Nagisa stole them all away? Then Rei would freeze. Especially since he’s only got that swimsuit on. It just looks so odd on him now. During the summer, Nagisa could handle Rei walking around like that, but now with the cold coming in, it’s enough to make Nagisa chilly just watching Rei walk around half naked.

“We need to get you ghost clothes,” he decides as he unrolls himself from the blankets and stands up, stretching his arms up as high as they can go.

“And how do we get ghost clothes?” Rei asks, sounding bemused. “At the ghost shopping mall?”

Nagisa starts to strip off his pajama top and goes for the uniform he’d abandoned on the back of his desk chair last night. His room is starting to get messy, and he’s pretty sure his mom is going to insist on a clean-up soon. He’d expected Rei to get a little hissy about it, seeing as Rei’s room was practically immaculate when Nagisa was over there, but Rei seems perfectly content among the growing piles of books and movies and dirty clothes.

“I think it’s silly you can’t just change your clothes at will,” Nagisa tells him as he buttons up his uniform shirt. “You must be a very low-powered ghost.”

“I am a perfectly normal ghost!” Rei replies heatedly, standing up off the bed but immediately turning around with a blush as Nagisa pulls off his pajama pants. Which Nagisa still thinks is sort of ridiculous, but he’ll let it go. Maybe it is different, here in his bedroom, than when the team was all changing together into their swimsuits.

Rei’s back is still turned as Nagisa hums and muses, “You can’t even write on the walls with blood.” He isn’t letting that one go. Rei’s been forcing him to study for _hours_ to yield positive results. And all that pain could have been averted with a little harmless spectre-ing.

“I am a normal ghost!” Rei repeats, hands on his hips and facing away.

“Then you’re a ghost who looks weird wearing a swimsuit and will continue to look weird for all eternity,” Nagisa tells him primly, putting on his uniform slacks and slipping on socks.

“I—” Rei visibly deflates, and Nagisa has to suppress a smile. It’s cute, how much Rei expresses through his body language when he doesn’t even mean to. Rei checks quick to be sure Nagisa is dressed before turning back around. “Yes, okay, you’re right. I look ridiculous. But how do we get ghost clothes?”

Nagisa hums, and does up his tie while tipping his head side to side. He hasn’t really thought about it yet. “If we killed clothing, would it become ghost clothing?” Rei had been against ghost food, but the idea of it has stayed in Nagisa’s mind. If people can become ghosts, why not other dead things? Rei’s swimsuit and goggles had become ghostly, so why couldn’t other articles of clothing?

But Rei doesn’t answer and eventually Nagisa glances over at him to find Rei giving him probably the most skeptical look Rei has ever given him, which is really saying something.

“If we...kill the clothing,” Rei repeats.

Nagisa nods.

“If we kill the clothing,” Rei says again, and Nagisa rolls his eyes.

“Oh, don’t be such a pessimist, Rei-chan!”

He eats breakfast with Rei standing behind him trying to bluster his way out of why he’s not being a pessimist, only completely realistic, and only when he’s out the door can he grab his phone and reply.

“You have to live with the belief that anything is possible!” He smiles at the sight of leaves ahead and spins his arms around, slipping on the leaves and almost falling onto the street even as he kicks the leaves up around him. He’s laughing as he rights himself. “Believe, Rei-chan!”

“You’re not talking into the phone anymore,” Rei reminds him, and Nagisa makes sure Rei sees the eyeroll. “And I haven’t even figured out the specifics on why I don’t sink through the floor! Much less how to get ghost clothing! All I have is conjecture!”

“Believe, Rei-chan!” Nagisa tosses over his shoulder again as they near the train station. Ghost clothes, so Rei can have a proper wardrobe and won’t look so silly in his swimsuit.

Not that the swimsuit is necessarily a bad thing. It’s not. It’s simply...distracting. Which would be alright, he supposes, if it was only the swimsuit. Lots of boys look good in swimsuits.

The problem is that he’s been thinking, these past few weeks as the summer season changed into another. And what he’s been thinking is that maybe there is a reason he blushed when Rei picked out the scarf for him—the one he’s wearing right now, in fact. The reason his heart leaps into his throat whenever Rei looks at him a certain way, the reason why he could spend hours watching Rei’s squinty face as he reads, why just letting their fingertips interact leaves him feeling weak in the knees, why falling asleep with Rei watching over him feels so right. If only it was the fact Rei looks good in his swimsuit. But it’s not the swimsuit. It’s Rei.

Nagisa sits on the train as Rei stands nearby, and tries to spy on him from underneath his eyelashes. Yes, it’s Rei, no doubt about it. All of him. Everything he is. And isn’t. Every part of him that Nagisa has grown to know ever since Rei came back to him. Parts that he loves. Parts that he tolerates because the parts he loves are worth it.

And now there are times now he’s catching himself when he’s spacing out and staring out the window wondering what it would be like if Rei wanted to hold his hand walking to the train station, or maybe cuddle a little closer on the bed during the night. If Rei _could_ hold his hand walking to the train station, if he _could_ cuddle a little closer.

Which are bad, terrible thoughts because they’ll never ever come close to reality and he’s better paying attention in class anyway or Rei will make him study for even longer. Which is so completely boring but Nagisa would much rather Rei help him than some faceless tutor. Everything's just better when Rei is there. That’s it. That’s why those dangerous thoughts were able to bubble to the surface. Unstoppable, because even when Rei is launching into a ten minute speech on the Theory of Relativity, Nagisa is so grateful he’s there, because there’s no one in the world that makes him feel the way Rei does.

So, obviously, what Nagisa needs are ways to get Rei to stay. Rei might talk about finding closure or his unfinished business, but Nagisa doesn’t care. He wants Rei to stay. He wants Rei to stay forever. And if Rei was able to change clothes, he’d definitely be happy to stay for longer, right? Nagisa just needs to come up with enough reasons for Rei to want to stay, and then Rei can forget completely about his unfinished business and stay forever. The Netherworld will never call him back if Rei doesn’t complete his purpose. He thinks. He hopes.

Except that ghost clothes turns out to be a more difficult problem than Nagisa initially thought. “Okay,” he declares, the moment he and Rei are alone in his room that night. “Let’s start with ghost glasses!”

Rei blinks, tries to sit on the bed, misses, and fumbles to actually sit on the bed before mustering up a reply. “Ghost glasses?”

“Yeah. So you don’t need to use your goggles to see.” Nagisa gestures to the goggles currently hanging useless around Rei’s neck. “You need glasses.”

Rei leans back on the bed and smiles a little. “And...we get these ghost glasses by...killing glasses?”

Nagisa bites at his lip and rocks back on his heels. “Yeah, well, wouldn’t that ghostify them?”

Rei shakes his head and blinks, like he’s trying to wrap his head around the idea. “Ghostify?”

“Yeah!”

Rei blinks again. “How do you kill a pair of glasses? Snap them in half? Then let’s just get some and you break them.”

“No, no, no, that’s not how it goes!” He has been thinking this through, after all.

“Why not?”

“Well, then my room would be filled with the ghosts of things I’ve broken over the years. It isn’t.” Actually, he’s not completely sure on that. “Right?”

Rei nods slowly. “Right. So you can’t do it. Then what?”

Nagisa drops his backpack and goes to sit beside Rei on the bed. “I bet if _you_ break them, it’ll work.” Rei looks over at him, eyebrows raised, and Nagisa smiles. It’s a part of the Rei that he loves, that look. And the look Rei gives him in the mornings, before he realizes Nagisa can see him. And the look when Nagisa pushes back from his desk with hands punching the air triumphantly over solving a difficult math problem.

How could he bear it if Rei left him now?

The very thought of it makes the ache in his chest grow stronger, and he forces it back down. Rei won’t leave. Rei can’t leave.

“Okay well,” Nagisa starts, turning on his bed so he can sit cross-legged. It means a knee goes through Rei’s abdomen with a small squawk of indignation, but they get settled down anyway. “You’re able to walk on stuff, right?”

“Right.”

“And sit on the bed.”

“Obviously.”

“So,” Nagisa takes a deep breath, “You’re able to touch things that you have a strong enough belief in you’ll be able to touch.”

Rei frowns. “I don’t believe in the floor. It’s just there.”

“Exactly! You believe that the floor is just there! And that the bed is just there! All those things you expect to be able to touch, and you can! But the moment you start thinking of a door as something you can potentially walk through, you go through it!”

Rei opens his mouth, closes it again, and stares at Nagisa with his head tilted to one side. “That actually makes sense.”

“Yeah, well…” Nagisa scratches the back of his head. “We have been watching a lot of ghost movies.”

Rei gives him another one of those looks, and Nagisa can feel his face heating up so he quickly rolls off the bed once more and goes over to his desk. “Okay, Rei-chan, come here.”

Rei follows obediently as Nagisa very carefully sets a pencil upright, just barely balancing on the eraser.

“What is this about?” Rei asks. For someone so smart, he’s very slow sometimes.

“The pencil is there,” Nagisa tells him.

“Yes, yes I can see the pencil is there, what are you—?”

“The pencil is there, right Rei-chan?”

“Yes?”

Nagisa turns and gets right up into Rei’s space, so close he has to tilt his head back. “Do you believe that the pencil is there? Do you believe in it like the floor?”

“I…” Rei stares down at him, wide-eyed. “I—I—I…”

“Then knock over that pencil!” Nagisa orders, pointing towards it and stepping to the side so Rei can reach the desk. “Believe in the pencil!”

“Nagisa-kun…”

“Believe in the pencil!”

Rei sighs, and turns to the desk. “Well, it’s obviously there,” he mutters, just loud enough for Nagisa to hear, and then flicks a finger at the pencil.

It goes right through.

Rei tries again. Same result.

“You don’t believe in the pencil,” Nagisa tells him, and Rei glares at him over his shoulder.

“I believe in the pencil!” He tries to slap it with his whole hand this time. Nothing.

“No you don’t,” Nagisa tells him, trying not to smile, but it must show on his face because Rei puts his hands on his hips and tries to glare, but his own smile is rather ruining the effect.

“You’re just doing this to make me look stupid.”

Nagisa shakes his head and holds his hands up. “I’m just trying to get you some glasses. You’re looking stupid all on your own.”

“The very second I learn how to do this I’m just going to pelt you with pencils. All day,” Rei says, turning away and trying again and again to push the pencil over. After a minute, Nagisa wanders over, hands held behind his back, and leans over.

“I think it might have wobbled that time,” he says, and accidentally bumps the desk.

The pencil falls just as Rei’s hand hits it.

“Hey!” Nagisa shouts, knowing he’s probably being way too loud and someone is going to come poking their head into his room any minute now. “You did it!”

“You _moved_ the _desk_!” Rei cries in exasperation.

“No, that’s was definitely like 80 percent you!”

“You moved the desk!”

“Okay more like 50 percent but I only bumped the desk a little tiny bit!”

Rei sighs, and rubs at his forehead. “Okay, so somehow I have to master being able to move things at all, learn how to break a pair of glasses, and hopefully some ghost version of those glasses will ghostify?”

Nagisa nods. It makes sense to him.

Rei sighs again. “We had better make sure they’re my prescription.”

Nagisa hops along over to the bed and tosses himself onto it. “It’ll work. You just have to practice, Rei-chan. You have to believe!”

“I believe plenty,” Rei huffs, sitting on the edge of the bed.

“Do you believe in aliens?” Nagisa asks.

There’s a pause. “No. Not really,” Rei says at last.

“What about Nessie?”

“The Loch Ness Monster? No.”

“In ghosts?”

“Of course no—of course I do!” Rei groans and puts his head in his hands as Nagisa laughs.

“See? You don’t believe in anything! You even forgot that you’re something you never believed in before!”

“And I suppose you believe in aliens, ghosts and the Loch Ness Monster?”

Nagisa rolls over and buries his face in a pillow. He’s so tired already, and they haven’t even gotten to homework yet. “I sleep next to a ghost every night, aliens babysat me when I was three and Nessie is my penpal.”

He waits for five seconds and then comes Rei’s “You’re ridiculous.” Rei clambers over Nagisa to reach his side of the bed, and props his head up with one arm, staring back at Nagisa. “The most ridiculous person I’ve ever met.”

“You still like me though,” Nagisa says, sending Rei a bright smile. But Rei’s face has gone all soft the way it does sometimes, and Nagisa can feel his cheesy grin fading from his face to be replaced with something much more real—hesitation.

“I still like you,” Rei says. “I like you more than any person I’ve ever met.”

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa whispers, but Rei is already coughing and sitting back upright. “Okay, let’s get started on your homework.”

The entire time he sits there at his desk, working out problems with a pencil Rei couldn’t push over, Nagisa is hyper-aware of Rei hovering at his shoulder, but forces his thoughts to numbers and equations. Proper, good things to think about. Not hopeless, hopeless crushes.

 

***

 

It’s Kou who insists on the get-together at Haru’s place. Nagisa had resisted at first, when she handed him the formal invite during lunch, but then he has three visible beings and one invisible one telling him he has to go and what can he do about that?

“Don’t gang up on me like that!” he tells Rei as soon as he can get his phone to his ear, walking to class. Rei shrugs.

“I think it’s important for you to spend time with everyone.” One of those things Rei keeps telling him again and again.

“I spend time with you.”

“With living, breathing, non-dead people then.” And Rei won’t talk anymore about it. He’s been acting standoffish all week though. Probably because he still can’t knock over the pencil.

“You probably don’t want it enough,” Nagisa tells him the night of the get-together, lying on his back on his bed with head dangling down, watching Rei whack his hand through the pencil again and again.

Rei turns with an exasperated expression. “You never said anything about wanting it before!”

Nagisa shrugs, or at least shrugs as much as he can in this position. “Well, you want to be able to stand on the floor. But you want to be able to go through doors.”

“I don’t always want to go through doors!” Rei tries again, and the pencil stays standing as his hand passes through it.

“Well, you’re a low-powered ghost,” Nagisa tells him, feeling just a bit petty. Maybe he’s still a little annoyed about Rei badgering him into Kou’s dinner. “You probably can’t just switch it off and on like that.”

“Okay.” Rei crosses his arms and glares at the pencil. “So I need to believe that the pencil is there, and I need to want it enough. If we just figure out the theory…” He glances over to the clock, and then looks at Nagisa. “What time is it?”

“You need your ghost glasses,” Nagisa mutters, sitting up to look at the clock. “Time to go, probably.”

Rei nods, and crosses his arms. “Dress warmly, alright? I don’t want you catching cold.”

Nagisa makes an exasperated noise, but has to turn his back to hide his smile. So fussy. Dress warmly. Eat better. Go to sleep now. And then he gets all offended when Nagisa points it out. He doesn’t bother pointing it out this time. Instead, he grabs one of the scarves he bought just for Rei’s peace of mind. Not the one Rei picked out this time. He had to throw that one in the wash.

It’s only a little chilly outside, but he wraps the scarf tight and stuffs his mittens in his jacket pocket to keep Rei happy. He tells his parents that he’s going and heads out, Rei by his side. It’s just getting dark outside, and Nagisa whistles as he sticks his hands in his pockets, fingering the wool of his mittens. “We can walk to Haru-chan’s,” Nagisa decides, and starts off in that direction rather than towards the train station.

“You’ll be late,” Rei chastises him, and Nagisa shrugs.

“I’d rather watch movies at home,” he says, and Rei frowns down at him.

“You can’t just spend time with me, Nagisa. I’m going to leave one day, remember?”

No. He can’t. Nagisa just frowns and slips his scarf up over his mouth. Closure. Whatever it is. He has to keep Rei from finding that as long as possible.

Selfish, selfish.

But if Rei leaves again…

What will it be like, to wake up without Rei watching him? To ride to school on the train all alone again? To not have Rei’s soft smile and kind eyes to turn to when he needs them?

Nagisa is so grateful Rei came back. But he knows that if Rei comes to him and says goodbye, he won’t be able to take it this time. Not now.

So it has to never happen. Rei can’t ever leave.

He belongs here, anyway. Would be here, alive and well, if it weren’t for Nagisa.

Kou opens the front door of Haru’s place before Nagisa even has a chance to knock, and she walks right through Rei in the entryway. Rei stops and stands there like a cat with all its hair standing straight, and Kou frowns, rubbing at her arms. “It’s chilly in here. Let’s get farther inside!” She grabs Nagisa’s sleeve and pulls him towards the main room.

And then it turns out everyone is already there, settled in various forms of repose around a hot pot that’s already cooking and giving off a wonderful aroma. Makoto and Haru and Kou and Nagisa and—looking intensely awkward—Rin. Nagisa watches as Rei goes to sit in the corner of the room, legs crossed and chin held in one hand. He seems to be focusing on Rin, who is making very careful small talk with Makoto. Which makes sense, he guesses. Rei had heard a lot of talk about Rin without ever really meeting him.

“Well, now everyone’s here, should we start eating?” Kou claps her hands together decisively. Rei sits there in the corner, staring at Rin with a slight frown as everyone shuffles closer to the hot pot, and Nagisa is too busy watching Rei to notice where he’s going. He collides with Makoto and almost flounders into the hot pot before Makoto’s hands close around his shoulders, pulling him back to safety.

“Are you alright?” Makoto asks, and Nagisa nods, eyes returning to Rei, who doesn’t seem to have noticed him almost burning himself to death. No. His gaze is still locked on Rin and Nagisa doesn’t like it at all. He purses his lips and then gives a little cry, pulling his phone from his pocket.

“Ah! I got a call! I have to take this, go ahead without me!” He pastes a smile on his face as he backs out of the room and retreats to the kitchen, laughing nervously all the while. He hopes Rei can take his eyes off Rin for long enough to notice him leaving.

And Rei follows. Of course Rei follows him. “Are you okay?” he asks, as Nagisa leans against a counter and breathes out slowly. Nagisa shakes his head and stares up at Rei.

“Are you okay?” he asks Rei, and Rei raises his eyebrows.

“Me? I’m fine. You don’t have your phone up.”

“Oh. Shoot. Um…” He holds the phone up to his ear and bites at his lip a little before coming out with the words. “You looked sad.”

Rei’s face goes blank. “No I didn’t.”

“Yes you did! You were watching Rin-chan and then you looked sad…” Nagisa’s shoulders slump and he lowers his voice, “And I want to know why.”

“Nagisa-kun…”

“You looked sad and I know it and I’m not stupid so don’t lie to me!” Nagisa slaps a hand over his mouth. He hadn’t meant for all that to come out. Rei stares at him with wide eyes, but after a moment his expression softens.

“I know you’re not stupid. I’m sorry.”

Nagisa sighs, hand holding his phone slowly drifting down. “Then what is it?”

Rei shakes his head and tries to adjust glasses that aren’t there. “I don’t know.” He sighs, and looks away. “Jealousy, perhaps.”

Nagisa frowns, and steps away from the counter to get closer to Rei. If only now he could reach out and take Rei’s hand, or reach up and cup Rei’s cheek, run a thumb along that crease that appears beside his eye when he’s worried. “What are you jealous of?”

“I don’t know…” Rei shrugs, and crosses his arms in front of his chest. He refuses to meet Nagisa’s eyes. “The comradery, perhaps.”

“What?” Nagisa manages to ask, before he spots the movement through Rei’s shoulder. He clamps his mouth shut as Rei frowns and turns around, jumping a little when he realizes they were snuck up on. He drifts automatically to Nagisa’s side as Nagisa fumbles with his phone and finally holds it in both hands behind him.

Rin grins from where he’s leaning in the doorway, hands in the pockets of his hoodie.

“You look awful panicky. You got a girlfriend you’re keeping secret?”

His eyes are warm and soft, and his smile kind, and it just reminds Nagisa how frustrated he is with Rin and Haru and this ridiculous fight between them. Two people who are so quietly kind and don’t know how to show it. But no matter how kind, he still goes pink at the comment, feeling the flush up to his ears, and Rei seems to choke quietly, something Nagisa would worry about if Rei weren’t dead already. “I don’t know what you’re talking about, Rin-chan!” Nagisa manages to squeak, refusing to look in Rei’s direction.

Rin shakes his head and sighs a little as he walks forward and takes Nagisa’s shoulder. “Anyways, come on. Stop running off. We already had to wait for you to get here.” He steers Nagisa towards the door, and Nagisa can hear Rei’s footsteps following. He tries to look backwards, to meet Rei’s eyes, to try to figure out just what is bothering him, but Rin is propelling him forward too quickly for him to manage.

Everyone else is still gathered around the hotpot. Kou grabs Nagisa as soon as he enters the door and places him at the head of the table, next to her and Makoto. Which leaves Haru and Rin across from each other and awkwardly avoiding eye-contact.

The hotpot looks like it’s been put together without Nagisa’s assistance. Rei doesn’t opt for the corner this time and sits at the other end of the table, between Rin and Haru, and when Nagisa glances up at him, he smiles. Nagisa still thinks there’s something a little off about that smile.

The hotpot tastes great, and Nagisa feels guilty he didn’t bring anything to contribute, but Kou waves it off. “This was my idea. I thought we should get together. My brother and I took care of the ingredients.”

But besides that, there doesn’t seem like much to say. Even Rei catches onto the awkwardness, fiddling with his goggles and looking to Nagisa every few minutes with a grimace as everyone eats quietly.

And then Rin clears his throat. “Um...he starts, and looks to his sister, who gives him an encouraging smile, “I’ve been thinking about...about your problem with the swim club…”

“We don’t have a problem,” Haru says almost immediately, and Nagisa sees both Kou and Makoto wince.

And off goes Rin, right like clockwork. “Yeah, you’re doing real well. None of you qualified at prefecturals. Nagisa didn’t even race!” Nagisa ducks down to avoid the accusatory hand wave, and can feel the words beginning to build in his mouth, begging them to stop fighting. No. Keep them in. Keep them in. Rin continues, voice rising with each syllable. “You’re going to lose your funding _and_ your pool since you don’t have enough members, so yeah, yeah I would say you have a problem!”

“Well, whatever our problems are, we don’t need your help,” Haru mutters, glaring over the food still held in his hands.

Rin looks like he wants to strangle someone. Rei is sitting there looking positively alarmed, and Nagisa can feel his face growing hot, his eyes going heavy. Yes, of course they need help. They’ve needed help ever since that night in the ocean, when everything fell apart and was never put back together correctly. Can never be put together correctly ever again, because Rei is dead and you can’t rebuild something with a missing piece.

“What the hell is your problem?” Rin snarls.

“What the hell is _your_ problem?” Haru snaps back. Everyone jolts in place a little. None of them are used to Haru losing his temper.

“I’m trying to help you!”

“You don’t want anything to do with me! Remember? Saying you’d never swim with me again, does that mean anything?”

“Hey, hey…” That’s Makoto, reaching over and grabbing Haru’s arm in an attempt to pacify him. “Maybe let’s save this conversation…”

“I’m offering to be your fourth member!” Rin shouts, and even Haru goes quiet.

“Sorry?” Makoto asks after a moment of silence. Nagisa ducks his head and tries to wipe away the tear that escapes one eye and runs down his cheek.

Rin sighs deeply and rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve been looking into it and...and I could transfer to Iwatobi in time for my third year. A lot of paperwork, but…”

“We don’t want you,” Haru deadpans and Rin’s face contorts like he’s about to start yelling again and Nagisa just can’t take it anymore.

“Stop it!” His hands slam down onto the table as he stands, and runs an arm across his eyes, but the tears appear again faster than he can wipe them away. “No, just both of you stop it!” he yells, squeezing his eyes shut so he doesn’t have to watch their faces. Doesn’t have to see the concern or the surprise. “You care about it each other, don’t you?” There’s no answer. “Don’t you?” he asks again, raising his voice even louder, and hears both Haru and Rin give reluctant grunts of acknowledgement. Nagisa sniffs, and feels his lip tremble as he continues. He doesn’t dare open his eyes now. Doesn’t dare look at Rei’s face across the table. “What if...what if something happened and you could never see each...and you could never see each other again and—and—and…” He takes a deep breath and practically screams the next words. “And you couldn’t ever say you were sorry or that you didn’t mean it, and they were gone forever and there was nothing you could do? Why are you doing this? Just! Stop! Fighting!”

“Nagisa, I’m right here,” Rei says from behind him, and Nagisa can feel the chill where Rei’s hand must be hovering over his shoulder, but he doesn’t want to hear it. Not from Rei. Not from Rei who wants to leave him one day. Who wants to leave him one day even more broken than before because that’s what Rei does to him, he breaks Nagisa is little tiny pieces with every smile and every laugh and even every frown and lecture. And Nagisa will take it, because being broken feels so good right until he realizes those pieces are never going to fit together just right ever again because he’ll always have some pieces missing. “Nagisa, I’m here…”

“Shut up!” he shrieks. “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!” Finally, he opens his eyes and stares out across the room, can just make out the blur of faces through the tears gushing down his face. All staring at him, as he breaks a little more. He trips backwards, and his hands touch the door. He spins around and throws it open, stomps out onto the steps, and slams it right shut again.

It’s more of a collapse onto the steps than anything, and Nagisa folds his knees up to his chest and tries to cover his ears so he doesn’t have to hear any of the conversation going on inside.

He does take a quick look around, because of course there is someone who could sneak up on him without opening the door, but Rei isn’t there.

And Rei won’t be there. And Rin wants to transfer into Iwatobi and it will be Rin and Haru and Makoto and Nagisa together again like Rei wasn’t ever a part of the team, like he never mattered, like he was never even there at all. Like Rei never even existed.

Nagisa’s nails dig into the skin of his arms as the first sob shakes up from his core, and he tries to tighten himself into the smallest ball possible.

But Rei existed. He existed and he laughed and smiled and lived and mattered, and it’s Nagisa’s fault that he’s gone now. His fault, his fault, his fault. His fault that Rei is dead. His fault that Rei wants to leave him again, always wants to leave him behind. Because he couldn’t swim faster. Because he couldn’t pull harder. Because he wasn’t good enough.

“Rei-chan,” he sobs, and hopes that Rei can hear. And Rei must have been waiting, listening by the door, because there he is, just a few seconds later. Cold hands around Nagisa’s shoulders, occasionally dipping in with that chilly sensation, but the sentiment is there.

“I’m here, Nagisa-kun,” Rei whispers, and his chill feels better than the heat of the hotpot ever could. “You don’t have to cry.”

He does. He does, he does, he does, because Rei just doesn’t _understand_ , but of course all Rei heard was what Nagisa screamed out at Rin and Haru.

“I’m not gone forever,” Rei whispers, and when Nagisa sneaks a glance, Rei is staring at him with one of those heart-breaking looks that makes everything hurt even more. “I’m here now,” he says, and Nagisa hides his face once more as the sounds of the conversation inside get louder and louder.

“You think you were a replacement for Rin-chan,” Nagisa mutters into his arms at last. “That’s what you meant about comradery. Isn’t it?”

Rei pauses before answering, but then sighs and shifts a little closer to Nagisa. “The...thought crossed my mind.”

Nagisa shakes his head and turns to look in Rei’s direction, into the face stricken with conflicting emotions—worry and guilt and shame. “Never,” Nagisa whispers, “Never for me. You’re Rei-chan, and you weren’t ever a replacement. And nobody will ever replace you for me. Never ever.”

He wants to beg. Beg Rei not to leave. Beg him to understand just how much Nagisa needs him, just how much he is the glue holding every broken piece together, but this isn’t the place, not now. Not with the arguing going on just inside. Not with everyone around. But maybe there won’t ever be a proper place. Because asking Rei to stay just because of Nagisa, to keep him moving on into the afterlife the way he’s supposed to…

How could Nagisa be so selfish? Be so selfish to need Rei to stay when Rei has every right to want to move on. To want to leave him.

“I’m so sorry, Rei-chan,” he whispers, and buries his face in his arms, shivering just a little and wishing he had his jacket.

“Sorry for what?” Rei asks gently.

“Just sorry,” he says, and waits for the inevitable fall-out to his outburst to come out the door.

 

***

 

It’s Makoto who comes out first. “Nagisa,” he says, and it’s a sentence contained within a single word.

“Mako-chan,” Nagisa replies thickly, and then he’s being pulled away from Rei to Makoto’s side, warm and broad.

“You know, if you ever want to talk about it, Haru and I are probably some of the best people to do that with,” Makoto says, and places his hand on top of Nagisa’s head, ruffling his hair just a little. “We were there too, you know. And I know it isn’t the same but…” Makoto’s breath hitches and Nagisa whips his head up to stare as Makoto stares out into the nighttime sky and whispers, “I wasn’t able to save Rei either.”

“Mako-chan,” Nagisa murmurs, and it’s like a dam breaking inside him. More than tears, more than nightmares. It’s everything. Everything he can say and can’t say and can say but hasn’t said. The things he can never do with Rei, because Rei is dead and cold, and Makoto is alive and warm as Nagisa throws his arms around Makoto’s chest, burying his face in his sweater. He can still feel Rei at his other side, and he’s not sure how to feel about it, trying to mourn Rei with his ghost sitting right there, but he still tucks himself close to Makoto, torn in two. “Why does it hurt so much? Why—why—?”

“I don’t know,” Makoto says, and sniffs, hand still ruffling Nagisa’s hair. “But having friends helps.” Nagisa looks up at him, and Makoto smiles down. “We are here for you, you know. Stop pushing us away.”

“But I—”

But he what? It’s so hard to think of what to say, with Rei on one side and Makoto on the other. He wants Rei to never leave him. He wants everyone to leave him alone. Or maybe he doesn’t. He’s not sure anymore. Why does he push them away like this?

The only thing he knows is that he needs Rei to never leave him. Because he’s selfish and awful and he _let Rei drown_ and how can any of them forgive him when…?

“But why?” he asks instead. “Why do any of you…”

He doesn’t deserve any of them. That’s it. He doesn’t deserve them. Not the way he is. Small and selfish and incapable of doing the one thing that would have been the most important thing he would have ever done. And he’s got nothing left in him. The only reason he’s even here right now is because Rei came back. Otherwise he’d just be empty. Completely empty, made of nothingness. Just a failure. A complete failure who let Rei drown.

“Why would any of you want me?” The words come out soft and strangled and Makoto looks down at him like he’s just seen him murder someone and Nagisa starts to turn away but then Makoto is just holding him tighter, the way he does, like he wants to protect Nagisa from the entire world. Strong and solid and warm arms wrap tight around him.

“Nagisa-kun…” he hears Rei say, but then his ears are muffled by Makoto’s sweater.

“Nagisa…”

“Why would any of you want me?” he whispers again. “It’s my fault, it’s my fault, Mako-chan…”

“Because we love you,” Makoto whispers, and Nagisa can feel the vibrations in his chest as he speaks. “We’re a team. We’re a family. We love each other. Even when terrible things happen. Even when we’re fighting. We want you. We’re always going to want you.”

Nagisa stays silent, and lets Makoto hold him. Tries to believe the words he hears.

“Did you hear me, Nagisa?”

“Yes,” he mumbles. He hears, at least.

“Good.”

There’s the slide of the door and Nagisa looks up, and then Haru nearly sits right through Rei. Rei scrambles out of the way and out of Nagisa’s sight as Haru slides in close, squishing Nagisa between him and Makoto. When Nagisa looks up at him, Haru gives one of his small, soft-eyed smiles.

And then there’s Rin, dropping onto the step beside Makoto, looking vaguely embarrassed by the whole thing. And Kou, sliding into place next to her brother. Rin’s hand reaches around Makoto to rub at Nagisa’s back, and Haru’s arm slides around his shoulders.

Nagisa shuts his eyes and breathes in deep before opening them again. His breath comes out foggy, but it’s not too cold, all huddled up like this.

“I’m going through with the transfer,” Rin says after a few silent minutes. And after a pause, he adds, “We’re still going to fight. Possibly all the time.”

“We’ll work things out,” Haru says firmly, which could already be material for another fight but Rin doesn’t take the bait.

“The four of us swimming together again?” Makoto says as Nagisa sits up straighter and rubs at his eyes. “Wouldn’t that make you happy?”

Nagisa sniffs and looks around for Rei. Rei makes his way around Haru and kneels in front of Nagisa, and already Nagisa can see the tears glistening in his eyes, tears that fall and disappear once they hit a solid surface. “It should be Rei-chan,” Nagisa says, and shuts his eyes tight so he doesn’t have to see Rei’s expression. “I’m sorry, Rin-chan, I’m happy we’ll be swimming together but Rei-chan...but Rei-chan…” He takes a deep breath and bends over, talking to his knees. “It was supposed to be Rei-chan. Rei-chan and Mako-chan and Haru-chan and me. We were supposed...we were supposed to be a team. I wanted…” He gasps in air and lets it out again as an ugly sob. “I just wanted Rei-chan to be a part of the team. And I don’t think…” Another sob. “...he ever felt like he was.”

“Nagisa-kun,” Rei calls, but Nagisa doesn’t lift his head, just shudders and lets out another sob. “I don’t want anyone to forget him.”

“Nagisa.” Haru, this time. “Why do you think we gave you that picture album for your birthday?” Nagisa lifts his face, knows it’s blotchy and red when he looks at Haru. Haru rubs his hand up and down Nagisa’s back, slowly. “None of us are going to forget Rei, Nagisa. None of us.”

“I don’t know if Rei ever felt if he was part of the team or not,” Makoto adds from his other side, “But I considered him a part of it. From the second he agreed to join.”

Nagisa sniffs and faces forward, looks into Rei’s eyes as they widen and go to stare at Makoto.

“He didn’t think he was part of the team,” Nagisa mutters, and Makoto shakes his head.

“He was.” Rei’s mouth opens just a little, his shocked expression. “He always was, and we all considered him a member of the team, even if he didn’t feel the same. And we all miss him.”

“I—” Rin clears his throat. “I’m not trying to replace Rei for you, Nagisa. We’re not trying to rebuild the team you guys were. We’re just making a different team. I’m not taking his place.”

Nagisa blinks the tears away and feels them run hot down his cheeks, stares at Rei until Rei meets his eyes and stares back. Slowly, Rei closes his mouth and tries a wobbly smile, wiping at his eyes.

Haru slides a little closer, and brings his face right close to Nagisa’s. “Rei would want you to be happy.”

“I do,” says Rei in a shaky voice, and reaches out until his hand is hovering above Nagisa’s, cupped over his knees.

Makoto gives one of his little chuckles, and leans back a bit to look up at the stars. “And you know, Nagisa, I’m sure Rei is still with us. In a way.”

“I am.” Rei sounds a little more amused this time.

“Oh, he is,” Nagisa mumbles. “Trust me.”

“And he always will be,” Kou pipes up from the end of the line.

“I—” Rei starts, and then stops, and won’t meet Nagisa’s gaze.

Because Rei wants to leave. He doesn’t want to be here forever.

“He...he…” Nagisa fumbles, not knowing what he should say. “I hope so,” he says at last, and Makoto squeezes him tight around his shoulders.

Makoto is shaking a little, Nagisa realizes, and he glances upwards to where Makoto is still looking up at the stars. Thinking about how he wasn’t able to save Rei either, maybe. Nagisa had never even considered Makoto might feel guilty.

“We should go inside,” Haru says at last. “We’ll get sick out here.”

Everyone mumbles an agreement, and begins to stand. Nagisa clings to Makoto’s shirt and gets dragged up off the porch for a second before Makoto crouches back down. “What is it Nagisa?”

“It’s not your fault,” Nagisa whispers. “It’s not your fault you couldn’t save him.”

“Nagisa…” Makoto frowns a little, and slowly, gently, unsticks Nagisa’s fingers from his shirt, wraps his hands over Nagisa’s. “You…you know it’s not…”

Nagisa doesn’t want to hear it. He drops his hands and smiles up at Makoto in a manner he hopes is convincing. “I’ll be inside in a minute.”

“O-okay,” Makoto says, following Rin in through the sliding door with one last parting glance.

And then there are three. Nagisa, and Rei, and Kou.

She slides over to him, moving slowly. “Hi, Kou-chan,” Nagisa murmurs as she presses right up close and puts her head on his shoulder.

“We won’t forget about Rei-kun,” she whispers. “I promise. Are you going to be okay?”

It’s up for grabs, at this point. Nagisa takes a shaky breath. “I hope so.” She cuddles closer, and reaches an arm around him to pet at his shoulder.

“I have something,” she says very quietly after a moment. “I found them when I was packing up our things at the beach, and then I didn’t know who to give them to, and then I didn’t want to bother his parents or anything and then the funeral happened and I didn’t know what to do so they’ve been in my sock drawer but I really think you should have them.” She reaches for something in the pocket of her sweater and then hands over a pair of wooly blue socks.

Nagisa feels Rei settle on his other side, staring at the package in Kou’s hand.

“Socks?”

She rolls her eyes. “No. What’s in the socks.”

Nagisa slowly unrolls the socks and sucks in breath at the familiar shade of red.

“Rei’s glasses,” he whispers, holding them up with socks abandoned in his lap. He glances over his shoulder where Rei sits, and then back to her. “Rei’s glasses!” She just smiles at him, and holds his hand over the balled up socks.

“It’s just a feeling, but I think he would have wanted you to have them,” she says after a minute, and then giggles softly. “You tried stealing them enough times.”

“Yes, well…” Nagisa laughs too, and stares down at the glasses, the lenses a little smudged, a little scratched. The sand of the beach perhaps, or the months in Kou’s sock drawer.

“Thank you, Kou-chan.”

 

***

 

The whole train ride home, Nagisa keeps the glasses cupped carefully in his lap. There’s room for Rei to sit at his side, and he tries to poke at the glasses once. His fingers go through. Nagisa can’t keep his fingers off, running them along the rim over and over again. Another piece of evidence that Rei was alive. Somehow these feel more real than the pictures. He can still remember plucking them off Rei’s nose and walking off with them as Rei called out behind him about hurting his eyes. The memory makes him want to cry and laugh all at once. That had been such a happy time, those few weeks he had.

They’re walking up the street to Nagisa’s house when Rei speaks. “You’re going to want me to break them, aren’t you?”

Nagisa glances down at the glasses held safe against his chest with mittened hands, and then to Rei. No. He wants these, to keep these with him forever. This irrefutable proof that Rei was alive. Because if Rei wants to return to the Netherworld, Nagisa wants everything he can to help him remember when Rei was with him. To remember that Rei was real and important.

“Would you be happier if you had your glasses back?” he asks tentatively, and Rei nods immediately. “Oh.”

“Oh?” Rei bends down so he can see Nagisa’s face better under the streetlights. “You don’t want me to break them?”

If having ghost glasses will make Rei happier, then Rei might be convinced to stay. Between Rei and the glasses, Nagisa knows for sure which one to pick. He takes a deep breath and plasters a huge smile on his face as he tilts it upright.

“It’s like destiny, isn’t it? You need ghost glasses, and your own glasses come home to you! Destiny!”

“A coincidence,” Rei corrects him. “Nagisa-kun, I really think…”

Nagisa waves a hand dismissively. “You’re always thinking, Rei-chan. Now is the time for believing!”

“Nagisa-kun…”

“Destiny!” he repeats again, because he’s pretty sure he knows what Rei wants to talk about. And he doesn’t want to talk about that. Not with Rei.

What he wants to do is beg Rei to stay with him, to not abandon him. But he won’t do that either. He can’t. That would be so selfish and wrong and he already can’t stand himself—begging Rei to stay would make him even worse.

But he can’t let Rei leave. He just can’t.

He doesn’t know how he’d survive that.

Glasses it is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! As always, kudos and comments are very appreciated! (or reblogging the link to this chapter on tumblr, if you like! i'm @ pollyperks) See you next week!


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the wonderful comments and kudos on the last chapter! You guys always make my day!

Nagisa latches onto the glasses thing faster than Rei had expected. “Time to break your glasses, Rei-chan!” he announces as soon as they retreat to his room.

Rei winces. “Right now? I can’t even move a pencil.”

“No, no, you did, you moved it!”

“Because you bumped the desk!”

Nagisa just shrugs and fumbles for the light on his dresser before grabbing the glasses in both hands and spinning them around like he’s dancing. Huge smile on his face, as if nothing that happened at Haru’s house ever actually happened.

Which is really, really disconcerting. Here Rei had thought Nagisa was doing better. Making his room a mess again. Watching movies about ghosts and actually doing his homework. Being happier. Was it all just an act, with Nagisa holding all of that inside of him?

Not all of it, his guilty conscience whispers. He wasn’t holding it all inside. You know he still has nightmares.

_Why would any of you want me?_

He sits on the bed and watches Nagisa twirl around, and he can’t believe that less than two hours ago Nagisa was saying those words out loud. Can’t believe how Nagisa can slap on a happy face with all those feelings in turmoil inside him. A master of deception. But it’s not manipulation, no. Nagisa isn’t looking to harm anyone. He simply refuses to let that part of him show, until he breaks and everything is let out at once. At the poolside. Tonight. And Rei would hope that breakage would finally let Nagisa be open and okay, but no. Instead Nagisa builds that dam right back up and throws on a smile and pretends everything is alright after all, and it’s so convincing you could almost believe him.

Nagisa had even admitted he wasn’t dealing well with Rei’s death. But Rei just hadn’t realized the extent. There was so much he didn’t realize, he’s coming to understand, and more that he’s continuing to miss.

Just how much has Nagisa decided to keep hidden from him?

“Are you sure you want to break the glasses?” he asks as Nagisa continues to spin. “Maybe you want...a memento.”

Nagisa stops so suddenly he trips. “A memento? No, Rei-chan, don’t talk like that!”

“Like that?”

“Like you’re going to leave!”

Rei’s first response is to insist he’s not leaving, but maybe he needs to start being realistic about this. “Nagisa-kun,” he says as he moves to sit on the bed, “We both know I’ll leave someday.”

“Yeah but...but…” Nagisa places the glasses reverently on his bedside table and sits at Rei’s side. “Don’t you need to find your closure? And you haven’t. So you can’t leave.”

Rei just hums, and stares at his glasses. Nagisa nods like that’s the end of the conversation. Perfectly alright with the idea of Rei never leaving.

But Rei _will_ have to leave some day. He’s let himself fall into a pattern of ghost movies and books read in soft lamplight and falling asleep each night with Nagisa safe beside him. Trying to make Nagisa happy again. Trying to make him smile.

But maybe he’s had it wrong the whole time. Maybe it’s never been about making Nagisa happy.

_Why would any of you want me?_

Maybe it’s about helping him heal.

Because what is this happiness? It’s fragile. A fragile happiness that’s going to burst the moment Rei leaves, and the longer Rei lets Nagisa’s happiness depend on his presence, the more it’s just going to hurt Nagisa in the end. Maybe it would be best for him to just disappear into the night, let Nagisa fall and the others catch him—Makoto and Haru and Kou and Rin, all there ready with open arms.

Except he can’t disappear. Because Nagisa is right. He hasn’t found his closure yet. The Netherworld isn’t calling him back, save for those few tugs deep in his stomach that occur every once in awhile, so faint. He’s not done here in the world of the living. He’s not done yet with Nagisa Hazuki.

“Are you really set on that ghost glasses thing?” he asks.

Nagisa kicks his feet up and bounces a little on the bed. “Would you be happier, if you had glasses?”

It’s an automatic answer. “Yes, yes I would.”

Nagisa pumps a fist into the air. “Then yes, I’m set on it!” He draws in breath, stops, and turns to Rei. “They are yours though. You want to break them? You want to try?”

There’s a flutter in Rei’s chest as Nagisa looks up at him hopefully. Glasses would be nice, wouldn’t they? To be able to see things properly again. Not have to lean in close to make out the micro expressions on Nagisa’s face. Maybe he’ll take some fake photographs of his own, in glorious HD. Blink and click. Nagisa’s smile. Blink and click. His bedhead. Blink and click. The way his entire face lights up when he gets excited. Little memories to hold on tight to, for when when he leaves, to carry with him to the afterlife.

“Okay,” Rei agrees, and Nagisa beams at him, making that flutter in his chest even worse. Rei looks away and crosses an arm across his chest. “Why don’t you get ready for bed? It’s getting late.”

Nagisa nods and jumps off the bed, going to his dresser to grab his pajamas before disappearing out the door. Rei winces as he hears a near collision with one of the sisters in the hallway, the laughter and cries of promised revenge as footsteps thud up the stairs.

Once he can no longer hear the footsteps and arguing, Rei sighs and uses both hands to rub at his temples before flopping down onto the bed. Too much has happened tonight for him to take in. And he has a headache. Put it down to crying. He still feels like crying, actually. For Nagisa. For himself. For the both of them, trapped in this impossible situation.

How ridiculous is it, how badly he can want to be part of a team now? How badly that he would be jealous of Rin, who belongs on that team more than Rei ever would have? He was always just a replacement for Rin, the afterthought, the last resort who couldn’t even swim. Rin’s absence had been like a physical being the entire time. Rei was just there because he couldn’t say no to a pair of bright eyes and a wide smile.

No, he remembers. It wasn’t like that. Makoto had said so. And Rin himself.

And Nagisa. Nagisa had said so too. And while Nagisa might be flippant at times, there’s something about the way he talks when he really means it that just speaks of absolute truth, as sure as the sun and the stars.

Rei wasn’t a replacement. Not to Nagisa. Never to Nagisa. It’s a thought he can clutch tight to his chest and never let go of, knowing that Nagisa saw him as more than just a handy stand-in for who was really supposed to be there. Nagisa picked him out and followed him and bothered him and convinced him to join and Rei doesn’t care if it was because he has a girly name or because Nagisa thought he looked beautiful—what matters is that Nagisa _chose_ him and nothing will ever change that, the fact that Nagisa saw him and refused to let go. That Nagisa looked at him and saw something worth not letting go of.

He sniffs and bites down on his lip as it threatens to tremble. He’s not going to cry. He’s not going to cry.

Why did he have to die? Why would the world thrust someone into his life who was everything Rei didn’t even know he needed, and then break them apart like that? It doesn’t matter how much Nagisa wants him to stay. It doesn’t matter how much Rei wants to be able to stay either. He’s dead and Nagisa’s alive and nothing will ever ever be able to bridge that gap between them. Not unless Nagisa dies as well and Rei would sell his soul to keep that from happening too soon. But why give him something so precious, and then take it away? Life is unfair, he knows, he’s heard it, but the afterlife too? Does it have to be just as unfair?

He wants to stay. He wants to stay so badly it hurts. Hurts deep inside him like the tugs of the Netherworld. He wants to be selfish, to keep going on this path of ghost movies and train rides and walks along the peer, of Nagisa holding books open for him at night and sleeping so close. He wants weeks more, months more. Years more of staying at Nagisa’s side. But he can’t have it.

He has to figure out how to conclude his unfinished business. With Nagisa. And he doesn’t know how to do that, not at all, but he knows that Nagisa has nightmares every night and can’t imagine anyone wanting him anymore. Which hurts Rei almost as much as the need to stay, the fact that Nagisa could feel that way.

That’s what he needs to fix. He’s sure of it. But once that’s done, the Netherworld will pull him back.

To stay would mean ignoring those words that Nagisa spat out at the ground, to keep ignoring those nightmares, to pretend that everything is perfect and doesn’t need to change. In other words, the longer he stays, the longer Nagisa suffers.

And he’s still selfish enough to want to stay.

Nagisa announces his arrival into the room by taking a flying leap onto the bed and nearly falling off the other side with a yelp of distress, only stopped by a death grip on the comforter that drags half the bed along with it before Nagisa comes to a stop right at the edge of the mattress. Rei can’t help it—he presses both hands to his stomach and starts to laugh, laugh like the sound will drive all other emotions from his mind. Nagisa untangles himself from the blankets, and after a moment of making sure all his limbs are still attached, starts to laugh too, flopping down on the bed next to Rei.

“I almost died, Rei-chan! How can you laugh?” he whispers, after a moment, grinning as he sits up to go close the door. He turns the lamp by the bed on before switching off the other, and drags the bedding back into place. Rei can feel the sheets and comforter passing through his back as Nagisa tugs and tucks things back where they’re supposed to be.

“Rude,” Nagisa mutters after Rei doesn’t stop laughing, and climbs right through Rei to get under the covers.

“Hey, hey, hey, you’re in my stomach!” Rei whines before sitting up and shuffling to his side of the bed. Nagisa just snuggles into the blankets. Once he’s all wrapped up he glances over at Rei.

“I’m kinda tired.”

Makes sense. It was an emotional night, even if Nagisa is pretending it wasn’t.

“You should sleep, Nagisa-kun,” Rei tells him fondly, and Nagisa nods before reaching to turn off the light. On automatic, he rolls over to the Rei, and Rei greets him, curling inwards so they’re nose to nose. Nagisa’s eyes are still so bright in the dark, maybe even more so, reflecting the light of the sky visible through the windows.

“Rei-chan?”

“Yes?”

But now Nagisa seems to regret saying anything. He bites at his lip, and shuffles a little in the blankets and won’t meet Rei’s eyes.

Rei reaches out a hand and lays it over Nagisa’s, and Nagisa’s eyes jump back to his own. And suddenly Rei is the one breathless, tongue tripping over the bland reassurance he’d planned so what actually comes out is, “Why me?”

“Why you what?”

“Why…” Rei breathes in deep and closes his eyes. “Why did you want me for the swim team? You said it was because I have a girly name but…” But it feels like it should have been something different than that.

“I thought I told you,” Nagisa whispers, as Rei continues to keep his eyes closed. “Your jump was really beautiful.”

“Yeah but…” Rei opens his eyes and can feel the frown etching itself onto his face. “I kept brushing you off and brushing you off and then it turned out I couldn’t even swim and I don’t know why you didn’t just...find...someone else…”

Nagisa blinks, and his mouth opens in a little ‘o’, silent for a moment before he speaks. “Why would I want someone else?”

Rei sighs, and shuts his eyes once more. “If all you needed was someone to take Rin-san’s place, there were a lot of people better suited to that. And even if Rin-san isn’t my replacement now, can you deny that when you were looking for a fourth member that Rin-san was really who you were thinking of?”

Nagisa is quiet, and Rei feels his hand flex beneath his own, the intersection of their hands making his palm feel fuzzy. He doesn’t mind. He stopped minding a long time ago.

“I don’t know what Haru-chan and Mako-chan were thinking,” Nagisa finally tells him, voice soft. “But I always wanted you. Just you. Because...because…”

Rei opens his eyes, and Nagisa smiles at him, and there’s so much contained in that smile. “Because I saw you in class that first day of school, and you looked so lonely. Sitting at your desk reading, all alone. And I wanted to know who you were, underneath that.” He closes his own eyes and turns his face into the pillow. “There’s some people, you know, Rei-chan, who just seem special the second you see them? Like they shine brighter than everyone else around them? You’re like that.” His voice is getting softer and softer, and Rei lies there with each word reverberating in his ears, wishing so badly he could reach out and take Nagisa’s face in his hands, ask him to open his eyes and just let Rei look at him, press their foreheads together, let Rei need to be closer, closer than he can ever achieve now that he’s dead. But Nagisa keeps going, keeps muttering into his pillow. “I wanted to know who you were, Rei-chan. Even before I knew you had a girly name, and before I saw you at track practice. Those were just things that made me want you to join the swim club. And I was so happy when you joined the swim club, I was, but for me it was so much more than just finding someone who could swim. It was about finding you.” He opens an eye to peep out at Rei, and Rei can see how flushed his face is. “Do you believe me?”

He does. He does. He might not have felt it at the time, but now, lying here, Rei can easily imagine that it always his fate to find Nagisa, to be found by him in return. Not just in life, but in death as well. They keep coming back to each other, again and again. And Rei doesn’t even believe in fate but somehow the idea seems possible, when it comes to Nagisa. So many things suddenly seem possible, when it’s Nagisa.

“I believe you,” he whispers.

“So that’s why you,” Nagisa tells him, voice suddenly firm. “Don’t go thinking you were a replacement at all. You are Rei-chan, and there’s nobody in the world who could replace you.”

The happiness swells in his chest like a hot-air balloon as Nagisa nods decisively and cuddles closer in his blankets, yawning once as he goes. But the happiness doesn’t last, deflating quickly as the reality of those words sets in. Nobody in this world who could replace him. Just another reminder of Nagisa’s dependence on his presence. Another reminder that this is only going to end in pain, for both of them, because he will always, always have to leave. Just as they find each other again and again, so they’re torn apart as well. Again and again and again.

“Nagisa-kun?” he whispers, and Nagisa opens his eyes just a little, obviously ready to fall into sleep.

“Yeah, Rei-chan?”

“You shine brighter than everyone else for me too.”

“Rei-chan…” A smile twitches at the corners of Nagisa’s lips, and then he’s pressed himself right up against Rei, head tucked beneath Rei’s head and body curled against his own. It’s imperfect, and he reaches through Rei in a couple of places, but Rei is too stunned to care. He lies there and waits for Nagisa’s breathing to even out, and then stares down at Nagisa’s face, so soft and innocent beneath his mop of curls.

Torn apart, again and again and again.

He waits until he’s sure Nagisa won’t wake up before he bites down on his fist and starts to cry.

***

 ****  


The whole ghost glasses plan is much more difficult than Nagisa had made it out to be. Seeing as he still can’t knock over one stupid pencil.

“I bet you’ll get it next time, Rei-chan!” Nagisa tells him brightly from the floor, where he’s currently doing his math homework, stacked on top of his textbooks. Rei just glares at the pencil, that stubborn pencil that won’t move no matter how much Rei wants it to. He’s been trying for a week straight, and nothing. Except when Nagisa sneezed and bumped the table again. One of his sisters does poke her head into Nagisa’s bedroom once, and gives him an odd look about doing his homework on the floor while a lone pencil stands precariously on his desk, but all she says is that it’s time to sort laundry, and Nagisa abandons Rei for the next half hour, or approximately 1800 failed attempts.

Defeated by a pencil. Rei can’t stand it. He looks over to the drawer where Nagisa had hidden his glasses. He wants to be able to see properly again. He’s sick of blobs and whirls of color when he’s too far away, tired of not being able to make out the subtle expressions on Nagisa’s face, or the chalkboard at school, or even the smallest print beneath pictures in textbooks.

Maybe it’s the guilt that’s the problem. The guilt that he’s spending time trying to knock over a pencil when really he needs to be figuring out how to achieve his closure with Nagisa.

The problem is he has no idea where to start. He’s never had to do anything like this before.

Is it to make sure Nagisa won’t be sad when he leaves? Rei hates that idea. As much as he hates the thought of Nagisa in pain, the idea that Nagisa wouldn’t miss him at all…

But no. That won’t ever happen. If there’s one thing Rei has learned for certain over the past few months is that Nagisa always saw him as more than Rei saw himself.

Maybe it’ll be enough to make sure Nagisa will be okay after Rei leaves. Sad, but okay.

Healed.

He gives up and flops over on the bed, and when Nagisa comes back with his clean laundry, he breaks Rule Number Two by throwing it on the bed right through Rei.

“Thank you for that,” Rei grumbles, and Nagisa rolls over onto the bed.

“No luck?”

“None at all.”

“We’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Nagisa! Dinner!” his father calls from the kitchen, and Nagisa hops up from the bed. Rei has stopped attending the family meals most of the time these days. They’re so loud, all of them, and Nagisa has started making the mistake of trying to hold silent conversations with Rei over his parents’ shoulders, which has just led to a mess of questions—if Nagisa is feeling sick, if he has a tooth coming, if there’s a fly in the room. It’s easier for Rei to just take his brief respite in Nagisa’s bedroom while the family dines.

Nagisa starts to head out the door, but bounds back towards the bookshelf last minute. “Here,” he says, walking over to the bed and wedging a book beneath a pillow on the first page so Rei can read at least that much. “This is another one of my favorites.” They’d finished their other book last night. He smiles at Rei, sweet and gentle, and then he’s off.

Rei looks down at the print, and sighs before pulling the goggles up to his eyes. Now everything looks blue, but alright. He can deal.

What he has learned about Nagisa from his book collection: Nagisa likes books with castles and dragons and characters with names you can’t pronounce. He likes books with magic. And he likes books with happy endings. They might not be the most thrilling, award-winning books Rei has ever read, but when he reads, he always feels he’s reading more than one thing. There’s the actual book, but then there’s the love Nagisa has poured into it, with the cracked spine and pages falling out and especially worn down near the end, like Nagisa has reread that happy ending over and over and over. When Rei reads, he feels almost like he’s reading Nagisa more than anything. Can imagine Nagisa lying in bed, flipping back and forth between those last twenty pages of a happy ending, to the point he almost has it memorized. Rei wonders if Nagisa had whispered the dialogue out loud to himself, the way Rei often had with his favorite books. It’s easy to imagine Nagisa doing the same, whispering the words to himself and smiling as the book drew to a happy ending again and again and again.

None of these happy endings are about a ghost and a living being, going hand-in-hand off into the sunset. Ghosts and the living don’t get happy endings.

Rei goes back to trying to knock over the pencil instead. He doesn’t want to think about unhappy endings.

***

The next week, he doesn’t follow Nagisa to school. “I’m going to be with my parents,” he says, and it’s not a lie. He spends a day following his father around the university, and spends another day with his mom working at her office. Another few days he spends wandering around the empty apartment while his parents are gone, memorizing the way the pictures on the wall are slightly crooked, and the way his room is slowly being transformed into a study. That’s good. He needs his parents to be able to move on.  

He comes home late, and then later, and then once late enough that Nagisa has already fallen asleep. Nagisa wakes up when Rei gets into bed though. “I thought you left,” he whispers, still half-asleep, and Rei shakes his head.

“No,” he whispers back. “I promised I’d say goodbye, didn’t I? I’m not leaving yet.”

“Don’t leave,” Nagisa mumbles, but his eyes droop closed once more, and Rei isn’t given the chance to respond.

Another week of trying to spend time away from Nagisa. He stays in the Hazuki residence for two days straight trying to move the pencil, but it doesn’t work. He spends time wandering the town, completely unfazed by the cold even while the people around him hustle about in coats and scarves. It’s a bit boring, after the first day, but it’s for Nagisa’s own good.

He spends a lot of time sitting on a bench overlooking the sea and thinking. About how he fits into Nagisa’s life so perfectly, how he could probably spend years and years more like this. But that would be for his own benefit solely. What sort of life could Nagisa live if he was haunted by the ghost of a high school student? Always talking to someone who isn’t really there, always falling asleep in the cold arms of someone not even able to hold him properly. And it would mean his unfinished business never gets taken care of.

Maybe Nagisa would be okay with that.

Maybe Nagisa would be okay with that no matter how much it’s hurting him. Because he’s hurting, Rei knows it. He knows it from the nightmares, from those vulnerable words Nagisa lets slip out by accident. And Nagisa wouldn’t be able to see him if Rei’s unfinished business wasn’t important. Which is why he can’t just pretend everything is fine and keep going on as he has been. He won’t do that to Nagisa. If he truly cares about Nagisa’s happiness, he can’t let do that.

With Rei making himself scarce, Nagisa takes up Kou’s invitation of a movie, and comes home with man-eating aliens on the brain.

“You should have come,” he tells Rei accusingly, and Rei flicks his finger through the pencil again.

“Not an alien person.”

Nagisa hmmphs and tosses himself on the bed.

The bed. The nightmares. Nightly occurrences, and Rei has done nothing to stop them. At first it was because he was embarrassed to bring it up. And then because he just didn’t know what to say. _Hey, um, I know you still dream about me every night, and you should really...not do that anymore._ And then it simply became part of the routine, to listen to Nagisa whimper quietly in his sleep and whisper Rei’s name in that wrecked voice of his. A reminder, each and every night, that what they have between them now is frail and so easily broken, because of those events that they never speak about. Maybe that’s it. He’s hesitant to bring it up, because the last thing he wants to do is talk about that night. He’s afraid.

He’s a rather useless kind of ghost when it comes down to it.

“Come to the next movie with us,” Nagisa orders from the bed, and Rei frowns. He doesn’t want to get into this right now.  

“I think it’s good for you to do things with people other than me.”

There’s a moment of silence, in which Rei fails three times to knock over the pencil, and then he hears Nagisa shift on the bed. “Is that why you’ve been avoiding me?”

“I haven’t been avoiding you. I’ve been encouraging your other friendships,” Rei replies firmly.

“Why?”

“Because.” Another fail. “It’s important to maintain a broad spectrum of friends, and it’s much more healthy for you to spend time with people who you can actually talk to without looking crazy.” Nagisa doesn’t reply, and when Rei glances back at him, Nagisa is watching him from the end of the bed with eyes narrowed.

“You want to leave, don’t you?” Nagisa says, and Rei sighs.

“Nagisa-kun…”

“You want to leave!” Nagisa’s eyes go all wide and hurt, and he spins around on the bed so Rei can’t see his face anymore. He couldn’t be farther from the truth. But Rei can’t tell him that. Can’t tell him that it’s tearing him in two, his need to stay and his need to fix whatever it is that hurts Nagisa so much.

“Why would I want to leave?” he asks at last, because at least that’s coming from his non-beating heart. He doesn’t _want_ to leave. Not at all. He just has to. “Why do you think I’d want to leave you?”

Nagisa throws his arms up. “I don’t know! Reasons!”

“Nagisa-kun, you’re being ridiculous…”

“Then why have you been avoiding me?” Nagisa snaps, and Rei snaps back.

“I haven’t been avoiding you!”

“Yes you have! You just said so!”

Rei huffs and crosses his arms. “I said I wanted you to spend time with your other friends! How is that avoiding you?”

Nagisa sniffs loudly, and then says, “You’ve gotten sick of me, haven’t you? You’ve gotten sick of me and you want to leave.”

“Oh for the love of—” But it’s impossible to maintain anger when he can hear how Nagisa’s voice has gone all high-pitched, like it does when he’s close to crying. “Nagisa-kun, that’s not it at all.”

“Aren’t you happy here?” Nagisa asks, as Rei walks around the bed to kneel where Nagisa sits. Nagisa wipes at his nose and sniffs again. “I want you to be happy…”

“Oh Nagisa…” Rei whispers, and puts his hands on either side of Nagisa’s legs on the bed. “I am happy. You make me so happy, being back here with you. I’m not sick of you. I don’t think I ever could be.”

Which is way, way more than he should be saying. But it’s hard to hold back, when Nagisa is looking at him that way.

“You’re happy?” Nagisa asks, and Rei nods.

“Yes. So happy.”

“Then why do you want to leave?”

Rei stares up at Nagisa, mouth open, and then sighs, and sits back until he can rest on the floor. He draws one leg up to his chest, and runs a finger down the stripes of his swimsuit. “I don’t want to leave,” he says.

“Then don’t!” Nagisa thumps to his knees beside him. “Don’t leave! Don’t ever leave!”

But he has to leave. He has to. That’s what he was supposed to do. Go back to the living, deal with his unfinished business, and then zip zoom to the afterlife. It should have been easy.

It shouldn’t hurt so much.

“I have to!” he says, louder than he means to, and Nagisa goes completely silent. “I have to leave. We both know it. And even if I didn’t have to, would you really want me hanging around your shoulder for the rest of your life?”

“Maybe I would!” Nagisa says, going red at the cheeks, and Rei groans, before standing up and retreating to the desk. He fists one hand in his hair in frustration.

“Be rational, Nagisa, we can’t just...just…”

“Just what?” Nagisa scrambles off the floor and follows Rei to the desk, hands balled into fists at his sides. “What can’t we do?”

“We...we…”

“What?”

“I can’t keep…” He squeezes his eyes shut tight, unable to bear the angry and hurt expression on Nagisa’s face. “I just can’t keep being a part of your life!”

“Why not?”

“Because…” He scrunches his hands up over his eyes, feels the muscles in his arms tensing. “Because…” It’s so unfair, it’s so unfair. “Because I’m dead!” he shouts, throwing his arms out to either side, and Nagisa cries out. Rei opens his eyes immediately, worried that he hurt Nagisa in some way, but Nagisa isn’t even looking at him. He’s staring at the pencil, rolling gently across the floor on the opposite side of the room.

The atmosphere in the room changes immediately, from tensed and angry to a silent wonder.

“I moved it,” Rei whispers at last.

“You chucked it across the room,” Nagisa corrects him, and it’s like all the words of the last five minutes dissipate into nothing, tension turned to childish excitement. “Rei-chan! You did it!”

Rei blinks down at his hand. “I don’t know how.”

“You were emotional,” Nagisa says with a wave of his hand, closing his eyes and tilting his head like he’s explaining the most obvious principle. “We’ve known forever that your belief in objects affects you being able to make contact. Obviously your emotions must affect that as well.”

“Yeah, I suppose.” Rei goes to kneel on the floor by the pencil as it slowly stops rolling and comes to a stop. Nagisa is right at his back, trying to peer over his shoulder. “I wonder if I…” He flicks a finger at the pencil again, and there it goes. It moves.

“What happened, Rei-chan?” Nagisa asks from behind. “You’re hard to see through. Why aren’t you more misty? You should be more misty. It’s more ghost-like.”

“Oh for…” Rei’s fingers clutch around the pencil and raise it to eye level. “There we go.” He turns his head over his shoulder and tells Nagisa dryly, “For those not able to see through my non-mistiness, I am currently holding the pencil. I’m not particularly emotional though.”

“Well, you did it once,” Nagisa says, “It makes sense you can do it again now you know it’s possible.” He grins at Rei, big and bright. “You did it Rei-chan!”

Rei tries to keep the returning smile off his face and fails spectacularly. “I did it.”

“Ooh!” Nagisa jumps up and when Rei looks back, he’s digging through his sock drawer. “Break your glasses now!”

Rei groans, even as the worry wraps around his unbeating heart. “Wasn’t the pencil difficult enough?”

“Yeah, but you always looks slightly to the left when you’re talking to me and it’s been driving me nuts,” Nagisa tells him simply, and takes the glasses out from their hiding place.

“I do?”

“Besides,” Nagisa goes on, oblivious to Rei’s trepidation. “You have a stronger connection to people you knew and places you’d been when you were alive, right?”

“Right,” Rei agrees, standing up and leaving the pencil on the desk as he passes it.

“Sooooo…” Nagisa smiles so hard his eyes close as he presents Rei with his glasses. “It makes sense you have a stronger connection with things that were close to you.”

“Yes, it does,” Rei admits. “But...maybe I want to start small. Like...breaking the pencil? Something I know I can touch. And what if me breaking my glasses just ends up with broken glasses? We should test this first.”

“Awww…” Nagisa hangs his head, but puts the glasses back in his sock drawer anyway. “Fine.”

Rei smiles, relaxing a little, and glances over at the clock. “You should go to sleep soon, Nagisa.” He blinks, and sucks in breath. “Nagisa-kun, I mean.”

But Nagisa is beaming up at him.

“What?”

“I like it when it’s just Nagisa.”

“Oh. Okay.” Rei crosses one arm across his chest and rubs at the other as Nagisa stands, still smiling so hard and making his cheeks bunch up. Rei can feel his face getting heated. He hadn’t meant to forget the honorific. But Nagisa likes it. Likes it when Rei says his name like they’ve known each other for years. Like they’re close like that.

“I’m still going to call you Rei-chan though!” Nagisa chirps, and then turns to bound out of the room.

“Wait, why?” Rei calls after him, just as Nagisa opens the door to go shower.

Nagisa pokes his head back in the room and looks at Rei like it’s the most obvious answer in the world. “Because you’re Rei-chan.”

And then he’s gone.

 

***

They go on to act like none of the conversation that happened that night had actually happened, and Rei isn’t going to bring it up. He starts going to school with Nagisa again, and goes to swim club meetings that, for a large part, are a discussion of Rin’s transfer and how it’s going to affect things. Most of it is paperwork right now, but they have Ama sensei on their side, and despite being easily flustered, she’s amazing at getting things done. Nagisa eats lunch with the rest of the swim team, and Rei sits by his side and smiles every time Nagisa glances over at him. Nagisa doesn’t need to talk to him for him to be there. And slowly, Nagisa starts to contribute to the lunch conversation, and laugh, and smile, and Rei thinks he’s seen enough of Nagisa’s smiles now to know these are genuine.

The first day of winter break happens to coincide with Rei’s birthday. Rei hadn’t said anything about it, and he’s expecting to wake up to Nagisa taking advantage of his morning off and getting as much sleep as possible. But no, when he opens his eyes, Nagisa is nearly nose to nose with him, and if he had his glasses Rei probably would’ve been able to count each individual freckle on his cheeks. Nagisa smiles and tips his head a little, still wrapped up in all his blankets. “Happy Birthday Rei-chan!”

Maybe it’s the quiet of the early morning. Or the way Nagisa’s eyes are still hooded with sleep. And part of him does wonder if to startle and fumble and blush would be the right reaction. But no.

He scoots just a tiny bit forward, until he can feel the heat of Nagisa’s nose pressed just against the tip of his own, and closes his eyes, relaxing into the bed once more. “Thank you.”

“You tired?” Nagisa asks, sounding a little concerned, and Rei hums.

“No. I just...like it like this.”

“Oh.” The blankets rustle as Nagisa bundles himself up tighter. “Me too,” he adds after a moment, “I like this a lot.”

They lie there, as the sounds of the home waking up around them gradually fill the air, and after a while Chiasa knocks on the door and calls for Nagisa to get his rear in gear and Nagisa mutters with discontent to himself as he pulls away and rolls out of bed to get dressed. “I know I can’t really give you a present,” he says as he pulls clothes out of drawers. “But we’re going out with everyone today, okay?”

“Okay,” Rei tells him, and smiles as Nagisa struggles to pop his head through the arm of a sweater.

There’s no snow yet, but Nagisa’s breath swirls out in smoke in front of them as they walk to the station. “So where are we going?” Rei asks, sitting down besides Nagisa when the seat doesn’t fill up.

“The aquarium.” Nagisa clicks the toes of his boots together and smiles, just a little reluctantly. “I know it’s nothing special but…”

He’s forgetting to talk into his phone, but Rei doesn’t bother with it this time. “It sounds perfect,” he says. “I never got to go to the aquarium with you.”

Nagisa beams.

They’re the first to show up outside the aquarium, and they sit on a bench to wait, Nagisa kicking his feet back and forth. He laughs and stands and waves his arms when he sees Makoto and Haru approaching. “Mako-chan, Haru-chan, you’re late!”

“Is no one else here yet?” Makoto asks when they reach the bench, looking around.

“Kou said she’d be bringing along some extra people,” Haru says, leaning against the side of the bench. “So they might be late.”

Kou shows up within five minutes, waving mittened hands. Hana follows close behind her, red-cheeked and clearly already suffering from the cold. And then behind them are Rin and some boy Rei doesn’t recognize. He’s small and looks perpetually intimidated by everything going on around him. “Ai, everyone. Everyone, this is my roommate, Ai.” Rin says it in a rather bored voice, but of course Nagisa jumps on it.

“Hello Ai-chan!”

“Ai-cha—” the boy squawks, but Nagisa is already laughing and running to the front door.

There’s no one else in the aquarium this early, and after paying for tickets, the group of them quickly separate out, heading for different attractions. Rei loses track of Haru and Makoto almost immediately, Kou and Hana seem to take poor Ai under their wings, and Rin disappears to who knows where.

Nagisa goes straight for the penguins, bypassing all the other attractions on the way. Rei follows a little more slowly, taking the time to admire the fish and manta rays. When he catches up to Nagisa, he’s leaning against the bars of the penguin exhibit, looking like he could almost fall over and collide with the see-through enclosure. Nagisa is muttering to himself, and it takes Rei getting right up next to him to realize Nagisa is pointing to the penguins and assigning them names, which lasts a while since they all keep moving, but Nagisa seems perfectly content to keep at it. Rei stands there with arms crossed across his chest trying not to laugh, but he can’t stop the way he’s smiling. Occasionally, some of the others pass by, and Rin does come lean against the wall and chuckle as he watches Nagisa’s efforts for a while. The aquarium begins to fill with more people, several more of them students looking for something to do in the same way. But Nagisa doesn’t seem to notice or care, so it’s Rei and Nagisa standing side by side as Nagisa points and names, points and names, points and names.

“I’m pretty sure that one is already Isamu-kun,” he tells Nagisa as Nagisa points at a penguin popping up out of the water.

“Well, now his name is Nao-chan,” Nagisa says firmly, and Rei gives up, leaning against the bar and watching Nagisa’s face light up every time he thinks he’s spotted a new penguin. Perhaps he would have found it boring, six months ago, but now he can’t think of anything he’d rather be doing.

He tries to remember his birthday last year. His parents had spoiled him with new books, he knows that. And they’d gone out to eat. No friends though. He can’t remember last time he celebrated his birthday with friends. When he was four, maybe? And all his friends consisted of all the kids roughly the same edge whose parents his mom knew?

He likes it like this. He might be stuck here for hours watching penguins, but Nagisa is laughing and pointing out whenever one of the penguins does something mildly amusing (which, it being Nagisa, consists of basically anything but standing stock-still), and Rei thinks that this is all he could ask for. All he needs.

Nagisa’s phone chimes with a message from Kou, telling him the rest of them are ready to go. Rei takes the chance to put a hand to Nagisa’s back, just a brief contact with cold, and leans down. “I’m going to see my parents, okay? Have fun with everyone.”

Nagisa spins around and frowns. “Are you sure? Are you not having fun? We can do something you’ll like!”

Rei shakes his head and smiles. He longs to reach out and smooth the sudden anxious expression from Nagisa’s face. “I’m having lots of fun. And I’ll see you at home. But today is probably really hard for my parents, and I want to be sure they’re okay.”

“Oh.” Nagisa’s brow creases. “Oh yeah. I guess…”

He still looks put out, and Rei smiles again as he presses his hand a little harder into the small of Nagisa’s back, until he squeaks out from the sudden chill. “Come on, don’t frown. I’ll walk with you a ways.”

Nagisa nods, and skips along until they find the others waiting by the exit. “Did you name all the penguins?” Rin asks dryly.

“Multiple times,” Rei mutters. Nagisa jabs an elbow through Rei and then masks it as putting his hands on his hips.

“Yep!”

“You’re breaking the rules,” Rei says as they begin to file out the door.

“So are you,” Nagisa hisses back, and Rei’s roommate looks over at him nervously.

“Sorry?”

“Oh?” Nagisa blinks over at him, and then smiles. “Oh no, not you Ai-chan!”

“It’s not…” Ai sighs, and Nagisa hums happily as he puts his mittens back on and wraps his scarf a little tighter.

Rei hides a chuckle and shakes his head a little as Nagisa falls in step with Ai, already asking him all about what it’s like to be Rin-chan’s roommate.

“Although not anymore, I suppose,” Nagisa muses, “Since Rin-chan is transferring.”

Rei peels away as Nagisa dives into the conversation with Ai, turning in the street and heading back towards the train. The ride does seem very quiet and lonely without Nagisa there, though of course, he tells himself, it’s because Nagisa is the only one who can see him, and not just because Nagisa simply isn’t there.

He’s going to leave. He has to get used to Nagisa not being there.

The apartment, when he walks through the door, is mostly dark, except for the lone kitchen light illuminating unwashed dishes by the sink. The lone light could have maybe fooled someone else into thinking his parents are at the family shrine, but he knows them better than that. The shrine isn’t where they would want to be today. They’d never taken much stock in tradition, and the family shrine was visited mostly only on holidays. If his parents wanted to feel close to him today, that’s not the place.

So he passes the kitchen and follows the hallway down towards his room, moving in the grey light of a home with all the blinds closed. Casting everything into shadows. He frowns, and twitches a hand through one of the curtains, wishing he was able to push those away like a pencil, and let the light inside. Admittedly, it’s not a very cheery day, and the sky is mostly grey already, but it’s a living grey, made of ever dynamic clouds and birds and the rare splashes of sunset. Not like this grey inside the apartment. Stagnant.

He reaches his room and pokes his head around the corner, fingers curling around the wood of the frame.

His mother. His father. And Katsumi too. Rei feels his heart lift just at the sight of his big brother.

But of course Katsumi can’t feel the same way, because he can’t see Rei and never will. And also because he’s too busy looking at the framed picture of Rei that is placed at the bottom of his bookshelf, surrounded by candles. A makeshift memorial. The candlelight flickers across the glass of the picture and barely lights his family at all, gathered together in this dark room with only a picture to keep them company. Trying to make it through the first of many birthdays Rei should have been able to celebrate with them.

Somehow, Rei thinks this sadder than any funeral. A picture and some candles, and three people sitting silently in the darkness.

His mother is sitting on the bed, which still hasn’t been moved even as the room is converted to a study. She’s been doing better, Rei knows, from the days he strayed from Nagisa’s side and followed his parents instead. Both his mother and father seem like they’ll be okay. But right now her face is buried in her hands as she cries, whole body shaking. His father and Katsumi are on either side of her, except Katsumi is on the floor. Katsumi looks so tired, even in this bad lighting. He’s been having trouble with university, Rei knows, Or had been, before Rei died. Maybe things have been sorted out by now. But trouble with classes might go some way in explaining the bags under his eyes. He’s not crying, though his father is, a hand held over his eyes as he tilts his head back towards the ceiling, like that will somehow mask the tears sliding slowly down his chin. They look so small, all of them, these people who had always been larger-than-life to him. His brother, who built forts of blankets and pillows with him to hide in for hours. His father, who always let Rei sit in his lap when he was little as he graded papers, handing him highlighters and telling him which numbers to circle and which to slash through. ‘Our little professor’, his mother would call him, and take pictures as the two of them sat there with identical concentrated frowns and nearly identical glasses. And his mother, the one he was able to go to for anything, and somehow knew the prescription for each problem, be it a hug and a cup of tea or calling certain households and letting parents know that their sons now owed Rei about a week’s worth of pocket money plus a new backpack. Superhero mom.

He doesn’t want her to hurt like this. It’s wrong. It’s so wrong. This isn’t how Rei wants them to remember him, not with this sort of pain. Not as some stuffy picture with candles around it. He wants them to remember blanket forts and paper grading and cups of tea. Not that he drowned. Not that he died. But how is he supposed to take away their pain? He tries to remember how he felt when his grandmother died. Sad, he thinks, but he’d never really known the woman. His father had cried though, and his mother. Katsumi too, who’d been a little older than Rei and probably had more memories of her. They’d cried at the wake and the funeral, and their home had been uncomfortable and silent for days, which Rei hadn’t known how to navigate, not at age eight. But eventually the life returned to the apartment, and everyone moved on, and the next family get-together had featured everyone telling their favorite stories about his grandmother, with everyone laughing and smiling and remembering even when it had hurt them so much.

Maybe this sort of pain is necessary. To be able to move on.  

Rei crosses the room and clambers rather awkwardly over Katsumi and onto the bed so he can get behind his family, back to the wall. He presses careful fingers against his mom’s shoulder blade and draws back again, like that will somehow get her attention. “I’m still here, Mom,” he whispers, even his whisper—inaudible to all of them—seems like a scream in the silence of this room. “I’m always...I’m always going to love you.” Always. He’ll keep those memories of them—both good and bad—safe inside him, and never forget. Because once he’s gone, they’re not the only ones who will have lost someone. He’s going to lose all of them too.

He shuts his eyes and repeats the words, voice scratchy as he curls up, drawing his knees to his chest as they continue to muffle their cries. “I’m always going to love you. All of you. I’m always going to…”

His mom hiccups. Rei opens his eyes and watches the motion of her arms as she slowly slides her hands from her face, so they come to rest down at her sides on the bed. So close that Rei could reach out and take them, if he was able. “I love you, Mom,” he says, reaching a hand out as far as possible without actually touching her. “Please don’t be so sad. I’m alright.” He reaches out a little further and touches just the very tips of her fingers. “I’m alright.”

There’s a pause, where Rei doesn’t know what else to say. There’s nothing to say, and yet everything he could say. And then, slowly, his father lowers his face. “Sometimes it’s like he’s not even gone , isn’t it?” his dad says softly. “I keep expecting him to walk through that door.”

Rei squeezes his eyes shut, and wishes it could be that way. “But I am happy,” he says, eyes still shut. “Death isn’t that bad. I’m very happy living with Nagisa, even if I can’t live here with you anymore. It’s not permanent, I _know_ that, but I’m still happy.” Oh, if only he could talk to his mother again, tell her about the pain in his chest whenever he thinks of leaving Nagisa’s side, ask her what he’s supposed to do, ask her what it means. He takes a deep breath and opens his eyes once more. “I think you would...would like to know that. If you can hear me, just a little bit. I’m happy with Nagisa. He’s my best friend.”

But they can’t hear him, and his father slowly wraps an arm around his mother, pulling her closer. Katsumi, so quiet, reaches up from the floor to hold her hand, to do what Rei will never be able to do again.

Rei presses himself against the wall and tilts his head back until it hits the wall as well. “I really am happy and...and I’m okay with it. Mostly. That I died. I mean…” He doesn’t know what he means. “I can accept it, I guess.” He lifts his head once more and lets his eyes wander across his family—Katsumi’s messy hair, his mother’s baggy sweater, the way his father’s glasses are pushed up into his hair. His mother hiccups again, and Rei can still see the tears falling from his father’s face.

“Please,” he whispers, pulling his knees tighter to his chest. “Please don’t be sad like this.” He goes quiet for another moment, and then snorts, laughing to himself. “I thought when I first came back here that I would just say goodbye to you and leave. It’s gotten much more complicated though.” He laughs again and rolls out so he’s lying stretched out on the bed behind where his family sits, arms crossed across his chest. He can tell them, even if they can’t hear him to speak in return. “Things always get more complicated, don’t they? I mean, who would’ve believed my pull back to the living world was Nagisa? I thought it would be you.” He turns his head, and lifts one hand to smooth it through the fabric of his mother’s sweater. He remembers this one. It had been so soft to the touch. “But it wasn’t you. It was Nagisa. He’s my unfinished business. I have to make sure that he’s going to be okay...or that he’s able to move on or something, I’m not quite sure.” He shuts his eyes, and listens to the sound of his mom trying to stop crying, the long and measured breaths Katsumi takes and the squeak of the mattress as his father readjusts on the bed. “I’m not sure of a lot of things, when it comes to Nagisa, actually.” And isn’t that the most truthful thing he’s ever said? But even if he’s talking to a family that can’t possibly hear him, it would feel weird to continue down that path. “But my point is that I’m okay. And that I don’t want you to be sad like this. Over me. I mean, I don’t think you shouldn’t be sad, but not forever. Not like this.”

Katsumi shifts, and Rei stops, knowing this is his brother’s way of preparing to say something. “Um…”

“And dying really isn’t bad, you know,” Rei adds in the moment of silence before Katsumi will arrange his thoughts and continue, “I don’t remember it very clearly at all. I mean, I remember the part before I died, but I don’t think dying itself hurt very much. So it’s not that bad. And I’ll be waiting for you. In the afterlife. And we can all be together again. So it’s alright. Not even that sad, really, when you think about it.”

“I miss him,” Katsumi says, and Rei feels something break, just a little inside him. Maybe it’s not even about dying. Maybe that’s not it at all. And maybe that’s why he’s holding so painfully tight to this new little life with Nagisa. Because he doesn’t want to say goodbye.

He misses them—so, so much—misses them so hard it hurts while they sit right before him, so close he could reach out and touch them with ghostly hands.

This is why the dead have to be pulled back to the Netherworld once their unfinished business is complete. Because given the choice, Rei would stay here forever. Go on forever in his swimsuit and goggles and watch as his family and friends age around him. See them die, one by one, and count down to the very last one so once he goes into the afterlife he won’t have to miss a single one of them. They lose one person. He loses them all. How is that fair? How is that fair at all?

“We all miss him,” his father says.

“I miss you too,” Rei whispers back, and now his voice breaks, and his eyes go cloudy with tears. He sniffs and sits up, and sits as close as he can without touching any of them. Sits with his eyes closed and tries to memorize the scent of his mother’s perfume, the way his father clears his throat every once in a while, the sound of Katsumi shifting where he sits against the bed. Cries as his family sits there and misses him and mourns him without ever realizing he’s right there with them. “I love you all, so much,” he tells them, voice scratchy, and curls his hands into his arms so hard it hurts. “I hope you can feel that. Even if you can’t see me, or hear me, I hope you know I love you.”

He doesn’t know how long it is as he sits there with them and mourns, but eventually his father mentions something about dinner, and gets up to blow the candles surrounding the picture out. His mother follows, and lifts the picture frame, holding it with gentle hands to her chest. “We love you sweetheart,” she says, as his father blows the final candle out, leaving the room in darkness.

And somehow, in that darkness, it feels like a final goodbye.

 

***

When he gets home, Nagisa is filled with a hundred-and-one fun facts about one Aiichiro Nitori, and Rei thinks that poor Ai might have unwittingly gotten himself a new best friend.

“Ai-chan is pretty upset about Rin-chan transferring,” Nagisa says as an aside as he lies on his stomach on the bed reading a magazine. “But I told him we’d invite him with us when we go places, so he can see Rin-chan all the time. That’ll be okay, right?” He glances over at Rei, who leans against the headboard and watches as Nagisa tenses up unconsciously, waiting for an answer.

Poor Ai. Getting a new best friend whose first thought is how to make sure he’ll be able to see his senpai again.

That’s how Nagisa does it though, isn’t it? Barges in where he’s not wanted, except that in the end it turns out he barged in right where he was needed. Rei’s not sure whether Nagisa knows what he’s doing or not. Whether he’s actually calculating behind those big innocent eyes or this is simply a skill that comes to him easy as breathing. Maybe in a few months time, Ai and Nagisa will be little partners in crime. They both swim breast, don’t they? Maybe they’ll have the chance to compete against each other next season.

Rei won’t be here to see it anyways.

He wonders how badly Nagisa will miss him. Or will he be able to fill that void up with someone else? Nagisa had told him that no one would ever replace him, not on the swim team and not to him. But is it fair to want Nagisa to miss him forever?

They lie in bed that night both reading from the same book, squished up together so Rei can feel his shoulder brushing through Nagisa’s as they lie on their stomachs and lean over the pages. Rei gives a small nod each time he finishes the page, and Nagisa flips it patiently. It takes Rei a little longer to read without his glasses, but he still suspects Nagisa could read faster than him even if he had his prescription. Nagisa is a very fast reader. That’s one of the first things Rei had discovered when he’d begun tutoring him. Nagisa is very smart. He doesn’t pay attention in class and whines and whines about having to study, but he’s very smart. He picks up on things quickly and finds delight in little details of his books that Rei hadn’t even noticed. But finally Nagisa’s head starts to droop, and Rei lays his fingers gently atop Nagisa’s hand. “Time to sleep,” he whispers, and Nagisa nods, before dog earring the page they’re on and going to place the book on the bedside table. He switches off the light and rolls back to the middle of the bed to where Rei is, swathing himself in blankets as he does so. And they’re back to the same situation they were this morning—nose to nose. Nagisa smiles sleepily. “Happy birthday, Rei-chan. I know it wasn’t much but…”

“I loved it,” Rei tells him gently, and Nagisa’s eyes soften.

“I’m glad.”

What Rei doesn’t say is that he could have spent all day lying in bed with Nagisa reading and still think it’s the best birthday he’s ever had. That his heart doesn’t even work anymore yet he can feel it expanding to feel his entire chest, blooming with happiness as he lies nose to nose with Nagisa, who looks so sweet and soft with the light of the stars making its way past the window blinds.

If he said any of that out loud, he might ruin everything. So he can’t. Instead, he watches as Nagisa’s eyelids droop lower and lower until his breathing settles and he curls automatically towards Rei. Rei bends his body out so Nagisa’s knees don’t end up going through his legs, and wishes so badly he had a real and living body, one that is warm and solid, so he could simply curve himself around the curl of Nagisa’s spine and fall asleep like that.

 

***

 

The first snow comes thick and heavy and unexpected, the second day of winter break. Nagisa runs out into it as soon as he spots it out the window in the morning, despite both his parents and Rei yelling at him to at least put some shoes on. All three sisters—the third having come home the night before to spend holidays with the family—all join him soon enough though, laughing as the snow falls down around them. Nagisa holds both his arms out like an airplane and runs in circles around the yard and laughs and laughs until he collapses in the snow. Mizuki and Chiasa throw themselves on top of him and Ren finally joins them, the four of them giggling and occasionally trying to stuff snow down the back of someone else’s shirt. They’re sent straight to shower the moment they get inside, and Rei sits there on Nagisa’s bed pretending to be entirely unsympathetic when Nagisa develops a sneeze.

“I _told_ you to get dressed first.”

“Oh, come on Rei-chan, don’t be like that…” Nagisa collapses dramatically on the bed and stares at Rei with nose all red. “I’m devastatingly sick. You should be caring for me hand and foot.”

Rei looks down at that pout lip and sighs. “How about I break the glasses?” he asks, and Nagisa is suddenly and miraculously better, scrambling off the bed and sliding across the floor in his warmest pajamas, decorated with little spaceships. He digs the glasses out of the sock drawer and puts them up on the desk.

Experiments with the pencil had proven futile. He had managed to break it, at last, by snapping it over his knee, but he wasn’t even sure what he’d seen next. The broken pieces of the pencil fell to the floor, of course, but for a moment—and just a moment—Rei had been sure he’d seen a second pencil, hovering above his knee. The image disappeared in half a second, of course, too fast even for Nagisa to see, but Rei has the feeling the glasses might be a little different. He’s had these glasses for years. Even as his prescription changed, his frames stayed the same, and of every single thing in his life, he can’t think of an object he had more of a connection to. If it’s possible to have a pull to people, can’t the same happen with objects? Especially if he was able to fling a random pencil across the room, he should be able to touch his glasses.

Rei reaches towards the glasses on the desk, and his hands go right through them.

“Damn!” he mutters, while Nagisa lets out a small encouragement, slightly stuffed up.

“You got this, Rei-chan!”

But he doesn’t get it. He doesn’t get it all day.

“I’m a second-class ghost,” he says that night, with Nagisa bundled up with extra blankets beside him. They’re both staring up at the ceiling, with the silhouettes of falling snowflakes through the window the only light.

“You’re a first-class ghost, Rei-chan,” Nagisa tells him firmly. “You broke a pencil.”

“I can’t suck people in through their televisions.”

“I think that was a poltergeist, technically.”

“I can’t write in blood on the walls.”

“You’d probably just write something really boring like math equations.”

“I would, wouldn’t I?”

“Yep.”

“Thanks for that.”

“Anytime,” Nagisa deadpans.

But Nagisa can never hold in his laughter for long. He’s muffling giggles after five seconds, and Rei turns his head to mock-glare at him, which just makes him giggle harder. Rei turns back to staring at the ceiling as Nagisa gradually settles down and quiets, and he’s not sure why the question pops to mind now. Perhaps it’s the silence, or the calming white of the snow outside that reminds him of the Netherworld. Or maybe it’s because Rei always has the worst timing imaginable, and couldn’t bear to let a peaceful evening go by happily.

“Nagisa...how did I become a ghost?”

He clamps his mouth shut almost the second after the words leave his mouth, and he turns his head to where Nagisa is already staring at him with wide eyes and mouth dropped open. He shuts his eyes so he doesn’t have to see it and shakes his head. “I mean...no! No, you don’t have to answer that, that was stupid, I shouldn’t have…”

“Haru-chan and I saw you from the beach.” Rei stops and opens his eyes as Nagisa’s voice cuts through his blabbering. Nagisa has his own eyes closed now, and faces the ceiling once more. His voice is even, almost monotone. “Mako-chan is scared of the ocean. So Haru-chan and I both went in after you. Haru-chan went to get Mako-chan. And I went to get you. Except I couldn’t.” He smiles, and turns back to Rei, opening his eyes, and Rei takes in breath when he realizes Nagisa is already crying, tears falling silently down his face. “I tried, Rei-chan, I swear I did.” He breaks into a rough whisper, like he can’t even manage anything louder. “There was this huge wave and you were so heavy and I tried to reach the surface but I couldn’t swim fast enough and I wasn’t strong enough...you were too heavy and I couldn’t...I couldn’t…”

“Nagisa,” Rei whispers, wishing more than anything he could wrap Nagisa up in his arms, hold him tight and stroke his hair and apologize again and again for asking in the first place.

Nagisa takes a deep breath, and shudders all the way down his body. When he looks at Rei next, it’s with a fake half-smile that they both know is forced. “I couldn’t get you to shore in time. I’m sorry, Rei-chan. It’s all my fault.”

“Nagisa, I…”

But he doesn’t know what to say. He feels sick to his stomach. Thinks about what it must have been like, for Nagisa to drag his dead body up into the shore. When did Nagisa realize he was dead? Somewhere out there on the ocean, or only once he’d dragged them both onto the land? He doesn’t want to think about it.

“I’m sorry I asked,” he says, and scoots a little closer on the bed. Which is probably okay, given how bundled up Nagisa is. Maybe the chill of his body won’t be quite so bad. “Please don’t worry about it.”

Nagisa sniffs, and nods.

“I mean it,” Rei says, “Please don’t worry about it.”

Nagisa closes his eyes and laughs a little, more tears dripping from his eyelashes.

“Why did you ask then?”

“It just—” Rei rubs at his forehead with one hand. “It just felt like something I should know.”

“Probably should,” Nagisa mumbles, and sniffs again. Silence. And then Nagisa sneezes.

“You’re sick,” Rei tells him, unable to keep the fondness from his voice even as he uses it as a handy way to escape the conversation, “You need sleep.”

“Not that sick,” Nagisa grumbles, even as he burrows deeper into his blankets. Rei rolls over and sticks his hand on Nagisa’s forehead, right so Nagisa can feel it. “Nagisa,” he gasps in mock surprise. “You’re so warm!”

Nagisa opens one eye just to roll it. “Oh ha ha.”

Rei smiles. “The best prescription is sleep.”

Nagisa shuts his eyes again and scrunches up his face in complaint. “I thought you were a ghost, not a live-in nurse.” But he settles down anyway, rolling once more so Rei can see his face smushed up against the pillows. “Besides,” he adds at the tail-end of a giant yawn, “If I get too hot, I can always cuddle close to you.”

Rei sends thanks to every single deity he can remember for the fact Nagisa’s eyes are closed to the shade of red his face turns in that instant. He lies there, waiting for Nagisa to add some joke at the end, or giggle a little bit at Rei’s reaction. But he doesn’t.

Nagisa simply falls asleep, something Rei isn’t able to do for a long, long time.

 ****  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! We're getting close to the end now!  
> This chapter was really rough to write, so sorry if it was rough to read. (i probably cried more than any of you writing this whole thing tbh tbh...)  
> Kudos and comments are always really appreciated, or come by my tumblr (pollyperks) to talk to me!  
> See you next Monday with the update!


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey! Thank you very much for the nice comments you left on the last chapter! Always very appreciated and motivational! (●'∀ `●)  
> I hope you enjoy the update!

It takes a few days for Nagisa to get over his cold, which is just fine by him, since it’s an excuse to stay cooped up with Rei. He knows Rei worries, and that Rei wants Nagisa to surround himself with people who care, and Nagisa appreciates that about Rei, he truly does. So he tries not to act too annoyed by it. But can’t Rei understand that as long as he keeps talking about leaving, that Nagisa needs to stretch out the time he has left with Rei? If Rei is truly going to leave him, then Nagisa will treasure every single second he has with Rei until then, every single stolen second that he never should have had the chance to grasp at all.

It’s unusually cold this year, and Nagisa takes Rei Christmas shopping among the crowds, phone held to his ear the whole time so they can always talk to each other and Rei can offer his input on gift ideas. The two of them stand in front of shop windows that reflect back only one of them, and Nagisa points out chocolates and small toys and Rei laments the fact he can’t give Nagisa anything, and it’s like it’s his birthday all over again. It’s not like it matters this time either, and Nagisa can’t buy Rei anything in return, so they’ve even, he insists. He buys presents for his parents and his sisters, and then small little gifts for his friends—Haru and Makoto and Rin and Kou and Hana and Ai and even Goro and Ama-chan sensei. He spends most of his pocket money, but he doesn’t care. He loves Christmas, always has.

“Maybe it’s a good thing you can’t buy me anything,” Rei says as he follows Nagisa out of the store, Nagisa’s arms now drooping under the weight of bags. “You’d be broke.”

“I would have bought you the best Christmas present ever!” Nagisa tells him, even though it’s impossible to hold his phone to his ear right now, and he tries to smile through it as that helpful little voice in the back of his head reminds him whose fault it is that Rei can never open any sort of Christmas present Nagisa might have given him, not ever. “Do you want me to buy something for your family?” he asks, to drown out that little voice. He knows something important had happened last time Rei went home on his birthday, knows it from the way Rei talks more easily about his family now, weaves stories about them into their conversations and laughing at the memories, although he figures it’s Rei’s business and he shouldn’t pry if Rei doesn’t want to tell him. But maybe it would be appropriate for Nagisa to get them a gift.

Rei shakes his head though. “No. No, it’s alright. You don’t have to do that.” Which is his answer every time Nagisa asks for the rest of the day, and then Nagisa gives up and stops asking. He still feels like he should do something for the Ryugazaki family though. Some way of reaching out, or something, he’s not sure. Or maybe they’d hate to see him again. Probably best he listens to Rei, in that case. Maybe that’s why he’s saying no.

He goes home with arms full of bags and his mom sighs when she sees him but it’s through a smile. “You need to learn to spend responsibly.”

“This is responsible!” Nagisa insists, trying to make it down the hallway without his mom spotting the bag that holds her gifts. “Presents for people I love is very responsible! They’re important!” Not important enough to bother wrapping them right away though, so he just shoves everything under the bed and hopes no one goes poking around. There are a couple of things in his room that would be bit more worrisome than the presents  if anyone did go poking though. Like the glasses hidden in his dresser, that distinctive red. Or the list of rules in the top drawer of his desk. That would be bad. That would be _really_ bad. “Rei and Nagisa’s Rules of Ghostly Living Arrangements.” Bad bad bad bad bad.

Other things are not bad though, like that he and Rei have started sleeping closer together at night. He’s not quite sure when that happened, but now he falls asleep most nights with the chill of Rei’s essence against his body, perhaps with their hands entwined on the mattress between them, or knees intersecting, or foreheads pressed together in that way Rei likes. Maybe it’s a little cold, but Nagisa grabs a few extra blankets from the closet to make up for it. He’s not complaining. Ever since the night Rei asked for the details on how he died, the nightmares have become more intense again, and he finds himself waking up in the middle of the night with heart thundering inside his chest. It’s so much easier to fall back asleep when he opens his eyes to the sight of Rei’s sleeping face, simply knows that he’s there, corporeal or not. He rarely gets to see Rei asleep, since Rei always falls asleep after him and wakes up before, but in sleep Rei’s face is so relaxed, free of the tension around his eyes caused by constant squinting. He’s bathed in moonlight while blending into the dark all at once, and he is beautiful. So beautiful, Nagisa thinks, as he closes his eyes, and feels all warm inside, even as he tucks himself close to Rei’s cold essence to fall back asleep, safe in those ethereal arms.

The day after they go shopping, Nagisa meets up with the swim club plus Rin, and the five of them go skating together on the community rink with rented skates and Rei watching over the bleacher side. Nagisa’s only skated once or twice, so he tends to fall a lot, but he does better than Haru, who seems personally offended there’s a rink filled with water he can’t actually swim in. Kou skates around to his side and links elbows with Nagisa, and guides him along until he can really begin to pick up speed. Which does lead to running into the wall at one point but his coat is so thick he barely feels it, mostly just slides down the wall and laughs even as he hears Rei hollering across the rink for Nagisa to be more careful.

Rei is all fussy after they’re all finished skating, and Nagisa knows that if he were able, Rei would be fixing Nagisa’s scarf and adjusting his hood. “I’m okay, Rei-chan!” he insists in a whisper, waving goodbye to the others.

“You’ll catch another cold,” Rei laments, and Nagisa stifles a laugh at the sight of Rei in his swimsuit summer best fretting about Nagisa getting a chill. “Let’s go get a hot drink then,” he says, and leads the way towards one of his favorite cafes.

It’s bustling of course, but the tables outside aren’t exactly prime real estate, with the weather. Rei sits in a chair there in the cold while Nagisa goes inside to get a drink. Nagisa squeezes out through the doorway with drink in hand and grins at Rei. “Okay!”

He sets the hot chocolate (with extra whipped cream and extra-extra chocolate sprinkles on top) on the table right between them. “It will get cold fast,” he adds as he pulls out his chair to sit.

Rei folds his arms in front of his chest, looking at Nagisa in bemusement. “I can’t drink it.”

“Yes well…” Nagisa reaches out and grabs the cup in both hands. He glances up at Rei through his eyelashes, and hopes Rei can’t catch him looking. Probably won’t, since Rei eye’s are bad, but still.

He’s spending quite a lot time watching Rei lately. Funny, because he doesn’t remember his heart inflating to two or three times its size when he used to look at Rei. He can’t even pin down when that began to happen. But now, just like sleeping so close together at night, sitting here across from him feels so good. Feels so right. He can’t remember the last time he felt so right. The right time, the right place, the right person. He is exactly where he is meant to be.

He doesn’t have enough experience in these sorts of things, but he has an idea of why that is. And it’s a stupid, dangerous thing to be doing that is only going to hurt him even more in the end, and yet, he doesn’t want to stop it.

Because he’s falling for Rei. That’s the only explanation that makes sense, unless Nagisa needs to be admitted to the nearest hospital for a terrible heart condition. He’s falling for Rei.

And he wants to keeps falling, to fall and fall and thinks that maybe the pain in the end might be worth the uncontrollable happiness he feels now, in this moment.

Or at least he hopes.

And it will be pain. Because someday, Rei will come to Nagisa and say goodbye, and Nagisa will try not to cry, and let Rei move on, because that’s what Rei is meant to do, after all. He’s not of this world anymore. He doesn’t really belong, and he definitely doesn’t belong to Nagisa. And Nagisa’s not sure when he changed his mind on that either. He’d wanted so badly to stop Rei from completing his unfinished business, to find reasons for Rei to stay, because Nagisa needs him, he _needs_ him, but maybe that’s part of falling for Rei, is knowing he can’t be selfish anymore. Not if he truly cares about Rei. If he truly cares, he’s going to have to let him go.

He was the one who killed Rei anyway. What right does he have to ask Rei to stay in this world with him?

But for now, Nagisa wants to be able to sit across from Rei and swing his feet beneath the table and think this is a date. And he can, for a little longer. Pretend that after the hot chocolate is has been sipped up between two straws, they can walk home hand in hand and Rei can be his and he can be Rei’s and nobody is dead and this happiness he has will last forever. But instead he finishes the hot chocolate all by himself and they don’t hold hands on the way home and Rei is not his and he is not Rei’s and never will be.

He won’t let that affect the holiday spirit though! He decorates his bed with extra Christmas lights and buys a miniature fake tree to put in the corner of his room. He’s always done the lights, but the tree is a new addition this year. Just so when Rei is trapped in his bedroom, it still feels extra festive. Nagisa strings the lights up and down the bedposts and up and over and door and around the little tree with its little ornaments that glisten in the light. He puts a Santa hat on the big pink bear from the fair. Rei sits on the bed, watching some sort of drama movie, and laughs when he looks up at sees what the room looks like.

“Yes, but it’s Christmasy, right?” Nagisa presses, and Rei grins at him and nods. Very Christmasy. Nagisa likes leaving the Christmas lights on during the night, enjoys the vast variety of shadows it creates, how it makes it look like Rei really is lit up from the inside. Plus, whenever he glances over at the little tree, he gets so excited about Christmas he starts kicking his legs to let it out. Rei just tells him he’s ridiculous and tucks his chin on top of Nagisa’s head to fall asleep. Being curled up against Rei like that is amazingly calming, and no matter how enthusiastic about Christmas he is, Nagisa always falls asleep within minutes.

A few days after skating, Kou (and therefore by default, also Rin) hosts a cookie-baking afternoon, which is wondrous and exciting and a disaster and Rei sits on the kitchen table and watches everything with a smile. Flour goes everywhere, the kitchen is too crowded for five people all at once, and their hands get stained from the colors of the frosting as they try to communicate over the sound of Christmas music playing the next room over. It’s perfect.

It turns out that the paperwork has all gone through, and Rin will be transferring to Iwatobi High for the spring. Nagisa makes a note to invite Ai to come visit sometimes, or maybe even very often. From the way Rin mentions him, it sounds like Rin is feeling a bit guilty about abandoning Ai as well. So there have got to be some good excuses to get Ai over to Iwatobi. Nagisa will come up with some later. He’s good at things like that.

And Haru and Rin don’t argue once. Actually, they’re quite pleasant to each other. Nagisa smiles to himself and makes cookies with a heart-shaped cutter, decorates each one in frosting, with swirly bits and polka dots. One for Kou. One for Rin. One for Haru. One for Makoto. One for Rei. When he hands the cookies out and Makoto points out the extra, Nagisa just gives them his most charming grin. “One for me, of course!”

Rei wanders over from the table into the kitchen and leans on the counter. And of course he knows exactly what Nagisa is lying about. “You know I can’t eat, right?”

“It’s the spirit of the thing,” Nagisa whispers. “One for each person I love. Even dead ones.”

He shouldn’t have said the word love. He should not have said the word love and he can feel his ears going pink and Rei is definitely going to notice but no. Rei just smiles and settles against the corner of the counter. The kitchen is loud and messy and Rei is right here by his side and Nagisa thinks this might be the be the best Christmas ever.

But he still needs help, urgent help, and there’s only one person he can think of who might possibly have any idea.

“Kou-chan!” He abandons Rei at the counter and darts towards Kou. She’s here, and he needs to have this conversation as soon as possible so he can try to figure things out instead of having his head all muddled like this. “Kou-chan, Kou-chan, Kou-chan!” He grabs her hand and pulls her away from the cookie trays, even as she yells in protest, and leads her out of the kitchen in a skipping run. They reach the hallway, far enough away to not be overheard, and she bangs him over the head with the wooden spoon she’s still holding.

“What?”

“Kou-chan, I need your help.”

“With what?” she asks, crossing her arms and narrowing her eyes. Nagisa does a quick check around to make sure no one has followed them, especially Rei, and then leans in.

“With...romance-related sort of stuff.”

Her entire demeanor changes in an instant. Kou’s eyes grow wide and she clasps her hands beneath her chin with the hugest smile. “Upstairs!” she orders, pointing the spoon with flair. “To my room!”

The two of them scramble up the stairs and Kou pushes Nagisa towards her bedroom with eager hands. She leans on the door to shut it as soon as the two of them are inside, but a muffled yell from downstairs makes her open it again a crack.

“We’re upstairs! Don’t let the cookies burn!” she bellows, and then closes the door again before bounding towards Nagisa with an almost frightening gleam in her eyes. “Okay.” She clasps both of his hands in hers. “Tell me your troubles.”

Where to start? Oh, where to even start?

“Okay…um….” Nagisa casts his eyes around for a place to sit, and Kou drags him over to the bed.

“You can tell me,” she says, letting go of his hands while her manic grin fades into a gentler smile. “I won’t tell anyone else, I promise.”

“I know you won’t,” Nagisa says, “It’s just...it’s just...it’s complicated.”

She nods sagely, crossing her hands. “Love often is.”

Nagisa’s stomach flip-flops. “I never said love!”

She gives him a side-eye before sighing and settling cross-legged on her bed. “Nagisa-kun, please.” She gestures with her spoon as she talks, waving it through the air to emphasize her points. “Lately all you’re doing is staring off into space. Talking to someone on the phone you won’t let any of us know about. Acting all embarrassed when I even mentioned love. And then you just stand there and smile at nothing, all the time now. Always thinking about them, obviously.” She waves the spoon towards him in an accusatory manner. “You’re completely smitten!” She grins and bites at her lip, lowering her voice. “So...is it...is it a boy or girl?”

Nagisa blinks, and feels the panic grip tight around his chest. Kou must see that, and lunges forward to take both his hands once more.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, none of us care! None of us care! We’re just all happy you seem to be doing better!”

Us. So they’ve been talking about him behind his back again. But maybe he has no right to complain about that, when he knows they’ve only ever had good intentions. Just a few months ago he’d felt like a hollow person, filled with nightmares and the taste of sea that wouldn’t leave his tongue. And he’d known he’d been worrying everyone, and just couldn’t bring himself to care. He shouldn’t get mad now at the fact that they did all the caring for him.

“So...you’d all be okay with it...if it was a boy?” he asks quietly, and Kou squeezes his hands tight.

“Of course. I’m just happy to know you’re seeing someone who makes you feel better. I mean, we all knew how you felt about Rei-kun…”

“What?” Nagisa squeaks. “What? I didn’t…”

“Wait, what?” Kou asks, and they stare straight at each other before both bursting into flustered explanation.

“I just sorta assumed you had feelings…”

“It wasn’t like that!”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t—”

“Okay, maybe it was a little like that…”

“Wait so it was?”

“What was what?”

“It was like that, it was?”

“I’m so confused, what was what?”

“You. Rei. Was it like that!”

“No! Well, I mean, for me yes, but for him no, no I don’t…” Nagisa sticks his lower lip out and stares out the window, where icicles hang from the rooftop, reflecting back the light from Kou’s room. What had he felt for Rei, before that night on the island?

He’d thought Rei was beautiful. That he was brighter than everyone else around him. That Nagisa just wanted to get to know him, to see that brightness all for himself. He’d meant it, meant it all, what he told Rei that night after the disastrous hot pot incident. He’d wanted to make Rei a part of his life, with a warmth kindled in his belly that only seemed to grow hotter with each moment Nagisa spent with Rei, until it felt like his whole body was consumed by that warmth. And he’d wanted so badly for Rei to feel the same way. Encouraged him. Teased him. Stole his glasses and laughed with that warmth flowing all through him, and hoped and hoped and hoped that Rei could feel that warmth too. Had that been the beginning?

“I liked him, I think,” he says quietly. “I liked him a lot.”

Kou shifts until she’s pressed right up against his side, their legs all lined up hanging over the edge of the bed. “This new person, you like them too?”

Nagisa cranes his head back to look at the ceiling, and frowns. “I think...it’s more than liking.”

“Then...loving?”

Nagisa shuts his eyes and sighs dramatically as he flops down on his back. “I’m not sure. I don’t know what love feels like.”

“Ooh, I have books—”

He starts upwards and catches her wrist before she can hop off the bed. “I don’t think books are going to help me here,” he says honestly, because, really, how many books are there going to be about falling in love with the ghost of the person you basically killed? “Just…”

“What do you feel like when you think about them?” Kou asks, and Nagisa lays his head back down, shutting his eyes to think clearer. It takes a moment for the right words to come to his tongue.

“Like...like I never want him to leave,” he says, and can feel his breath catch already as he thinks how terrible he is for wanting it so badly, even if he won’t do anything to stop it. “Like...like I want to see him smile and frown and laugh and cry and do everything with me and wake up to him every morning…” Everything Rei already does. Everything Rei has become to him. The one who’s always there. Who has stuck with him his all these months, seen him at his best and his worst and can still look at Nagisa with those soft, soft eyes, who can still care and want him and lie so close beside him at night. Why is it getting hard to breathe? “And...and...and…” What more could he ask from Rei? What more could he want? The words spill out from between his lips, babbled and unstoppable. “....and I want to touch him and….and hold his hand and…” He breathes in deep and feels like a shiver runs through his whole body at the thought. “...and kiss him...”

“Nagisa-kun…” Kou whispers, and then her fingers are wiping the tears from his cheeks. “What’s wrong?”

Nagisa sniffs, and shrugs, and tries to stop crying, but he just can’t seem to. He sits up and wipes at his tears himself. He sits hunched over, not daring to look over at Kou and the expression on her face. “Because I’ll never be able to do that.”

“Why not?”

_Because he’s dead and it’s my fault and he’s going to leave one day and there’s nothing I can do about it. Because I need him and it hurts so much, it hurts so, so much._

“Because he doesn’t feel the same way,” seems like the easier thing to say, because that’s true too.

“Hey!” Rin’s voice, from downstairs, “What’s taking you two so long!”

“Have you asked him?” Kou asks, completely ignoring her brother, scootching over and putting an arm around Nagisa’s shoulders.

“Well, no, but how do you ask that sort of question?” Nagisa huffs, and straightens up, puffs out his chest, uses his cheesiest voice. “Hey, I think I might love you, do you like me too, yes or no?”

“Kou!” Rin again.

She pokes Nagisa in the stomach and he deflates as she admits, “Well, subtlety has never been a strength of yours…”

“Kou!” Kou makes an exasperated noise and hops off the bed. She yanks open her door.

“We’re having an important conversation!” she shouts.

“But things are burning!”

“What? Oh…” She’s out the door in a flash, and Nagisa can hear the clunk of each footstep as she runs downstairs.

Rei likes to say that Nagisa is ridiculous, but they’re all ridiculous, really. Ridiculous friends who give him so much without asking anything in return.

He smiles and glances down at his hand, shiny with the tears he’s wiped away. There’s a mirror on one of Kou’s walls, and he checks his reflection to make sure his eyes aren’t pink from crying. They’re a little pink, so he sits back on the bed for a minute to let the color return to normal. It gives him time to think.  Is he in love with Rei? How can he tell? How do you know when you’re in love?

He has no idea, but when he gets back downstairs, Rei is laughing so hard he’s crying looking at the array of burnt cookies scattered all over the counter while Kou hits all those responsible over the head with her spoon to the merry sound of Christmas music, and Nagisa feels so warm inside it almost burns, his heart three, four, five sizes larger.

He holds a book for Rei again that night, turning the page whenever Rei gives a small nod. He’s read this one so many times he practically has it memorized, so he doesn’t bother reading it along with Rei this time. Rei had fussed a bit about Nagisa wasting his time doing this if there’s a different book they could read together instead, but truthfully, it’s restful, to lie here and watch Rei squint as he tries to read. He always tends to fall asleep before too long when he does this, but tonight he’s too wound up from his conversation with Kou. Is he in love? What should he do about it? Should he do anything about it at all?

Even if he is in love, Nagisa knows he shouldn’t do anything about it. After all, he dreams of being in love with someone who can actually hold him while he sleeps, and hold his hand and kiss him until he’s weak in the knees and everything else the fantasy of being in love entails for him. Everything that requires a real body, not a mirage as solid as mist. Rei could never walk hand-in-hand with him down the street. Will never kiss him. Will never love him back.

And it’s Nagisa’s fault. All his fault, for letting Rei die.

He stares at Rei, and thinks the words.

_Do I love you? Do I love you? Do I love you?_

If Rei hadn’t died, all those things would have been possible. Rei would be warm and solid and could hold his hand and...and...so many things...and it’s his fault...

Eventually he feels his eyes grow heavy, and he’s not sure if it’s sleep or the threat of tears, but both seem likely. He turns a page slowly when he sees Rei nod, and then feels his hand slip from the book as he falls asleep.

He’s jerked awake just as suddenly, to the point he’s wondering if he fell asleep at all. But he’s sitting straight upright in bed, and Rei is hovering right there, looking alarmed. “Wha-what happened?” Nagisa asks, and the words come out slurred. He rubs at his face and feels where the skin is creased from the pattern of his blanket.

“You were having a nightmare,” Rei says softly, a hand waving at Nagisa’s side, ushering him to lie back down. Nagisa settles back down into the blankets, and realizes now that his cheeks are wet, his body shaking. He grabs the blankets and wraps them tight around himself, heart jumping. This was a particularly bad one, to not just wake him up but leave him shaking and crying like this. They haven’t been that bad since right after Rei died. Embarrassing.

“You were calling my name,” Rei says softly as he lies down, and slowly moves his arm so he mirrors Nagisa, one arm pillowing beneath his head, and the other resting on the mattress between them, pinky fingers intersecting.

“Was I?” Nagisa wipes at his eyes and feels the hot tears hanging there. “I-I-I…” What can he say? “I’m sorry, Rei-chan.”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Rei tells him in that same gentle voice, and tilts his head further into the mattress. It compresses beneath him. If anyone else was in the room, would they see the indent of a body on the bed? Almost like he’s solid. Like he’s real. Like he’s solid and real and Nagisa feels like the worst person in the world for hoping for Rei’s love when he’s the reason Rei is dead.

“I’m sorry…” Nagisa whispers, and squeezes his eyes shut. “I’m so sorry, I’m so sorry…”

“You don’t need to be sorry,” Rei tells him again, and Nagisa feels his body give up. He’s done. He can’t do it anymore.

“I woke you up,” he whispers, opening his eyes once more.

“That’s okay,” Rei whispers back. “I don’t ever feel tired, remember?”

Nagisa wiggles his feet and draws his knees up. Rei’s body automatically bends outwards to make room. “It’s become a bit of a habit,” he mutters. “The...the...the bad dreams.”

“And...and what do you dream about?” Rei shifts until their faces are so close Nagisa could feel Rei’s breath, if he had any. Rei’s eyes are shadowed, and soft, and it’s impossible to lie to him like this. He thinks Rei knows the answer to this one anyway.

“Losing you.” The words drift from his mouth on the softest of breaths, and Rei’s face breaks, like it’s the worst thing he could have heard.

“I’m right here,” he says, and Nagisa laughs bitterly, trying to hide his face in the pillow.

“No. You’re not. I lost you.”

He watches Rei’s face cycle through a myriad of emotions before finally settling on the same soft expression as before. The one that makes Nagisa’s heart beat faster in his chest. “You didn’t lose me,” Rei says, raising a hand and waiting until Nagisa does the same, so their hands press palm to palm, nearly perfect. “See? I came back to you.”

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa shakes his head and sucks in a shuddering breath. “You’re going to leave me again.”

“Not yet,” Rei tells him firmly, lowering his hand and returning it to right between them, and holds it palm upwards so Nagisa lays his hand right through. “Not yet.”

Nagisa sniffs, and realizes how ridiculous he must look, crying over this, but Rei is here, and he doesn’t care, and Nagisa knows that Rei will always look at him with that heart-pounding expression and it doesn’t matter how ridiculous he is.

Is this what they might have been, if given the chance? Would Rei have looked at him that way, and wrapped him tight in warm arms, and let Nagisa do the same?

It’s so unfair. It’s so, so unfair that they weren’t even given the chance and Nagisa can’t stand it, and his brain kicks up one the last conversations he ever had with Rei while he was alive.

_I want to sleep with Haru-chan._

_You don’t want to be in a tent with me?_

_Well, you probably grind your teeth while you sleep._

_I don’t do that!_

He laughs again, and muffles it in the pillow. “I’m so sorry, Rei-chan. I’m so sorry.” The laughter fades into shudders, words leaking out in strings of broken syllables. “I should have slept in the tent with you that night. I should have...I should have...I don’t know why I…”

“Nagisa…” Rei starts, and Nagisa can sense him moving on the bed, but it’s too late to stop now.

“I should have slept in the tent with you. And then I would have seen you out there, not Mako-chan. And I...I...I could have been there, not Mako-chan, because Mako-chan is scared of the ocean and I-I-I wasn’t and I’m _so sorry_ Rei-chan, I should have slept with you…”

“Nagisa…” And then suddenly there’s cold all up and down his back as Rei climbs over him to curl up behind him, hardly a perfect fit but it doesn’t matter. Rei’s arm curves over his body, and Nagisa can feel the chill where Rei’s chin is sitting on top of his head.

If anyone else could see, they’d probably look like some horrific science experiment gone wrong, and Nagisa can feel all the places where their bodies interlap, and it probably feels like a full-body sneeze for Rei, but from where he lies with Rei’s arm looped over his stomach with hand resting on the mattress, it almost looks real. He can pretend it’s real.

“It’s okay.” Rei tells him, speaking into Nagisa’s hair. Nagisa can’t see his face anymore, but he knows Rei is still going to be wearing that same expression, and his voice is like Nagisa is the only one in the world who matters right now. “Shh. It’s okay.”

It’s not okay. But Nagisa won’t argue, not when he’s lying here with Rei like this.

“Are you cold?” Rei asks, and Nagisa immediately shakes his head. He doesn’t want Rei to move.  

“This is good,” he mumbles. And Rei doesn’t seem inclined to move anyway. He lies there and holds Nagisa while Nagisa’s breath settles, while he stops shaking. “Have I woken you up before?” Nagisa asks for a while.

Rei pauses before answering. “Yes,” he says at last. Nagisa cringes.

“Often?”

“...yes.”

“Why didn’t you say anything?”

Rei sighs, his chest expanding into Nagisa and then contracting back out of him. “I didn’t know how to bring it up.”

“Oh.”

“And…”

There’s an ‘and’. Nagisa hadn’t been expecting one. He waits for Rei to figure out what he wants to say.

“And then I was afraid to. Nagisa…” Rei starts to pull away, and Nagisa turns his head, a small sound of protest building on his tongue when suddenly there is a pair of cold lips pressed to his forehead, and Rei is murmuring, “I can’t stand to see you hurting like this.”

Nagisa goes completely still, with Rei’s lips still pressed against him. And then he balls his hands into the blankets. “But it’s going to hurt, isn’t it? It’s always going to hurt.”

Rei pauses before answering. “Maybe it will. But not this much. I hate to see you hurting so much. Hurting you is the very last thing I want to do.”

They both know he will anyways. It’s inevitable.

“You can’t save me from hurting, Rei-chan,” Nagisa says at last, and finally Rei removes his lips and returns to his position with his chin atop Nagisa’s head. Nagisa slowly settles back down, that spot on his forehead burning despite the chill of Rei’s lips. “It’s going to hurt. You can’t stop that.”

“I know. But I’ll try anyway.”

And in this moment Nagisa knows he loves him. He loves him so much. What else could this be but love, this emotion bubbling up inside him and threatening to burst? He loves Rei, he loves him, he loves him, _he loves him_ , and it doesn’t matter how impractical it is, or if it’s only going to hurt. He’s fallen in love with the ghost of a boy, and whether it will be worth the pain later or not doesn’t matter, because there’s no changing how he feels now.

He presses himself to Rei as close as he can, and doesn’t bother saying anything more. There’s nothing he can say, as Rei walks his hand up to where Nagisa’s lies on the blankets and slowly traces patterns on his skin with his cold touch. Nothing to say, with the feel of a kiss remaining on his forehead. Nothing to say as he loves, and loves, and loves, and feels so safe, knowing Rei is right here with him. He falls asleep to the gentle sound of Rei breathing those breaths he no longer needs.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you very much for reading! I'm sorry this chapter was a bit on the short side, but I should make up for that next week! So I'll see you again next Monday!  
> Thank you incredibly much for any comments/kudos/recs!


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had it ready early so figured I might as well publish now.  
> Thank you for kudos/comments/recs from the last chapter! I appreciate it so much!  
> I hope you enjoy the update!

Rei doesn’t sleep at all that night. Just lies there wrapped as carefully as possible around Nagisa, wishing more than anything that he had a real body, a real warm and living body so he could hold Nagisa tight and wipe the tears from his eyes.

When Nagisa wakes up in the morning, Rei slowly removes himself so Nagisa can perform his initial burrowing back down into the covers. It takes a while, but after about ten minutes Nagisa reemerges from his burrito and peeks out from under his blanket at Rei.

“Rei-chan?”

“Yes?” Rei asks, propping his head up. Nagisa stares at him for a moment with those sleepy pink eyes, and then just shakes his head and rolls out of bed. Rei lets it go. If Nagisa really needs to tell him something, Rei hopes they’re at the point that he will.

It’s two days until Christmas, and Nagisa still needs to wrap everything and then deliver presents to the respective recipients. Rei sits on the bed and watches Nagisa’s haphazard attempt at wrapping presents, and just smiles. Before he died, he knows, he would have sat here criticizing, but there’s a certain charm to Nagisa’s method of basically smothering whatever the present is in enough wrapping paper and then circling the whole thing fifteen times with tape. He goes through three rolls of the tape during the entire process, scampering out of the room to sneak new rolls from the closet before anyone (his mother) realizes how much he’s wasting. And then everything goes in one big bag and it’s the two of them on the train once more. Nagisa kicks his feet happily and complains about the scratchy wool scarf his mom had put on him and Rei had badgered him to keep wearing. It’s snowing the whole time they travel around Iwatobi, delivering gifts to Makoto and Haru, and then Hana, and then Rin and Kou. Nagisa gives Nitori’s gift to Rin to pass along, and Rei smiles softly as he watches. Barging in, exactly where he’s needed. And then it’s off to deliver presents to Goro and Ama sensei, who looks only vaguely alarmed Nagisa knows her address.  Nagisa drags Rei along to the same cafe they’d gone to before and hums happily while he drinks a hot chocolate set perfectly between the two of them. He has to lean so far forward to even reach the drink, scooping out the whipped cream and sprinkles with the spoon provided, and it’s ridiculous for him to act like Rei could possibly do the same just because it’s placed in the middle of the table, but Rei doesn’t say anything. Nagisa is smiling, pink-cheeked and red-nosed, and Rei won’t do anything to ruin it.

Christmas Eve the two of them lie on the bed side by side, Nagisa kicking his legs up and down in excitement.

“You don’t believe in Santa Claus anymore, do you?” Rei asks, grumpy as the mattress keeps jolting underneath him as he’s trying to read.

“Of course not.” Nagisa stops for a moment to flip Rei’s page for him before going back to kicking. “But I still love Christmas! I love seeing people’s faces when they open up what you got them, and I love all the good food, and I love it when everyone is home again and I just love it a lot! I hope everyone likes what I got them.” He stops kicking. “I did remember everyone, right?” He’s not really talking to Rei, not anymore. “Yeah, yeah, I did. Unless Rin-chan didn’t give Ai-chan his present, but that’s Rin-chan’s fault. Not mine. Or should I have gone to Ai-chan’s house? Rei-chan? Rei-chan? Should we have gone to Ai-chan’s house, do you think? Rei-chan!”

“What?” Rei raises his gaze from the book and glances over at Nagisa. “Which part of that were you asking me?”

Nagisa sighs, but fondly, and rolls over onto his side, grabbing at his blankets and pulling them over himself as he does so. “Do you think we should have gone to Ai-chan’s house to give him his present? Do you think Rin-chan forgot?”

Rei tries to remember as much about Nitori as he can. Judging by the way he’d acted around Rin, he guesses Nitori would be overjoyed to have Rin coming delivering presents. Even more so if Rin decided to add his own to the mix. “I think leaving it with Rin-san was best.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay.” Nagisa burrows down into the blankets and scoots towards Rei with tiny sounds of effort. He sneaks a hand out of his cocoon and places it on Rei’s book. “Which part are you at?”

“Oh? Um…” Rei tries to sum up where he’s at, and Nagisa smiles, head falling to the pillows with a tiny thwump.

“I love what comes after this,” he whispers. “Are you ready for the next page?”

Rei stares at the book before him for a moment, and then shakes his head. “I’ll read some more tomorrow, okay? Why don’t you turn out the lights?”

“Mmm…” Nagisa groans as he takes the book and rolls over to the nightstand to deposit the book and turn the lamp off. But the room stays illuminated by the Christmas lights strung everywhere, a soft white, and Rei can’t help but stare at the way Nagisa’s eyes glitter in the glow of the lights. Like Nagisa is the one not of this world.

Nagisa must catch him staring. He blinks at Rei and a slow smile spreads across his face. “What?”

Rei shakes his head quickly and looks pointedly at the ceiling. “Nothing. Go to sleep.”

“ _What_?”

“ _Nothing_.” But he’s grinning too as Nagisa crawls across the bed and clambers on top of Rei, knees on either side of Rei’s legs and a hand planted in the mattress on either side of his head. The blankets fall around them, closing them off from the world in a temporary sanctuary. The glimmer of Christmas lights sneaks its way in through patches in the blankets and around the edges, and there’s just enough light for Rei to see Nagisa’s smile and the way his eyes still look like they’re full of stars.

“You’re trapped now,” Nagisa tells him matter-of-factly, as if Rei couldn’t just roll his way right through him and out of this prison if he wanted to. “Now tell me what it is.”

“Or what?” Rei challenges him, and watches Nagisa’s face crease in consternation.

“Or I...keep you trapped here forever?”

“That’s hardly a threat.” The opposite. If only Nagisa could keep him here forever, trapped in this moment in time. “And it’s nothing, I said. Am I not allowed to smile anymore without it being a crime?”

“I’ll put it on the official list of rules,” Nagisa tells him with an evil little grin and Rei shakes his head, laugh already bubbling up his throat.

“You’re ridiculous,” he tells Nagisa, and reaches up to cup Nagisa’s face with his hands best he can, erasing that grin all at once and replacing it with a much softer smile. A sweet smile, as Nagisa closes his eyes and let’s Rei’s cold touch remain upon his skin.

He’s beautiful, Rei thinks, so beautiful.

But he can’t just say things like that. He shouldn’t be thinking them either, but there’s no stopping that now.

“Go to sleep, Nagisa,” Rei tells him gently, and Nagisa nods before flopping over onto his side with a giant _whumph_ , making everything on the bed bounce up and Rei grumble about it some more. But they move on instinct now, Nagisa gathering up his blankets and crawling towards the center of the bed, and Rei moving to meet him, until Nagisa lies still and lets Rei fit them together, forehead to forehead. Nagisa sighs contentedly and reaches one hand from beneath the blankets, seeking. Rei matches his fingertips and guides both their hands down until they can intersect their fingers between them. And everything feels right again.

“Merry Christmas, Rei-chan,” Nagisa whispers as he closes his eyes.

“Merry Christmas,” Rei whispers back, and sends a silent thank you to whoever might be listening that he at least gets this, this moment right now with a boy more beautiful than the night sky.

 

***

 

So Christmas comes, and goes, and Rei spends the day hanging around the Hazuki residence, smiling as he watches the family go about their antics. With all four children at home and apparently all as excited about the holiday as Nagisa is, there isn’t really a moment of peace, and Rei does retreat to Nagisa’s room either when the noise level is beginning to get to him or when he feels the moment is too private for his silent observation. Rei sits by the tiny Christmas tree and watches the lights reflect across the ornaments, and wonders if Nagisa had decorated the room so nicely precisely because Rei would be spending time in here. He suspects that’s at least part of the reason. Nagisa also comes up with excuses about every five minutes to run into the room and turn the page of the book Rei is reading. Rei assures him it isn’t necessary, but Nagisa does it anyways. Of course.

It might have seemed boring, to an outsider, Rei supposes, but it’s a wonderful day for him, watching the Hazuki family celebrate. He’s grown quite fond of all of them, actually. Mizuki, who hates mathematics and spicy food and owns at least twenty billion shades of lipstick, according to Nagisa’s estimations. Chiasa, who is in constant battle with her uncontrollable hair and always carries a book with her, even around the house, for any quiet moment she finds. Ren, who has fallen right back into place since coming home for the holiday and has already proven to have a razor-sharp wit, quick on her feet with an easy laugh, so many characteristics also found in her brother. And there’s Nagisa’s parents too. His mother, stern but affectionate, even if Rei feels she doesn’t always know how to express that affection. And Nagisa’s father, always running a little late and often with a little frown on his face that means he’s worrying about something he doesn’t want to burden anyone else with. Rei may not have gotten to know any of them the way he knows Nagisa now, but he’s still been living in their home for close to six months now. They make a perfectly imperfect family, the six of them together, and he’s going to miss them. All of them.

Nagisa is so exhausted at the end of the day that he falls asleep practically as soon as he falls into bed. Rei wishes he could grab the blankets to cover Nagisa up a little better, but no matter how hard he tries to convince himself that the blankets are real and solid and that he really does want to touch them, his hands pass through the material every single time. Frustrated, he sits on the end of the bed with his chin in his hands. He’s a useless ghost.

At this point, he could wait until Nagisa begins to have his nightmares and use that as opportunity to wake him up and get him covered up better. The nightmares haven’t been as bad the last couple of nights, and he hopes that maybe Nagisa will be so tired from Christmas he won’t have any tonight, but it’s a pointless hope, he knows. Nagisa still has his nightmares, time after time after time, reliving Rei’s death, never able to let it go.

Rei groans and lies back on the mattress, fingers steepled on his chest. Just what is it that Nagisa isn’t able to let go of? Why does Nagisa relive that night over and over again, even now, when Rei lies beside him at night? Haru and Makoto and Kou had all learned how to cope and move on, and yet Nagisa stayed stuck. Stays stuck. Why?

That night when Nagisa had woken himself up, blaming himself for not sleeping in the tent with Rei, what sort of…?

Like it would have made any difference. And yet Nagisa had apologized, shaking and crying for sleeping in the tent with Haru, because…

Because…

Because he hadn’t been there?

But Nagisa _was_ there, he was the one who was there in the ocean with Rei, gasping and struggling in the water as the wind roared above them and the waves flung them all around and—

Could that be…?

It couldn't be as simple as that, could it?

He stands up abruptly from the bed, but it doesn’t jostle Nagisa in the least. Rei still spares a parting glance as he exits through the door, hopes Nagisa doesn’t wake up and think Rei has left him. But he needs to think. And he can’t seem to think straight anymore when Nagisa’s around. He has to get out.

He heads down the hallway and through the front door, stepping out onto the snow, cold against his feet but only in the most detached of ways. Nothing like when he’d been alive. He starts off down the street, interrupted by a few cars as he heads instinctively towards the train station.

The train. Yes. He tries to think back to when he first appeared to Nagisa at the poolside. Tries to remember their conversation on the train, and the one when Nagisa had invited him home. Every conversation they’ve had, where they’d even briefly touched upon what happened that night at the islands.

He finds a handy tree in someone’s front yard and slides down it until he’s sitting through the few inches of snow to the ground below.

He definitely remembers what he’d thought when he first came back. That maybe Nagisa could see him because he was the one who let Rei drown.

Nagisa was the one who let him drown. That’s what he’d been thinking the entire time. What he’d been telling himself. That Nagisa was the one who let him drown, as if somehow—someway—if Nagisa had been a little better, Rei would still be alive. And that’s what Nagisa had told him too. That he’s sorry he couldn’t be faster. Sorry he couldn’t be stronger. Sorry he didn’t sleep in Rei’s tent. Sorry, sorry, sorry. Sorry that Rei died, because it’s always, in some way, Nagisa’s fault.

Selfish, selfish, selfish. That’s what he’s been being. Selfish and stupid and too wrapped up in his own needs and wants to realize what was happening right in front of him. What should have been obvious from the moment Rei returned, so obvious, maybe, that it was too big for him to even see.

Nagisa blames himself for Rei’s death.

Rei scrunches his fists in his hair until it hurts, teeth gritted hard. Stupid, stupid. And the worst part of it is that he’d thought the same, in those guilty, seething little corners of his mind. Thought that maybe his unfinished business with Nagisa was about granting forgiveness, back when he was newly ghosted and angry and couldn’t see why he deserved any of this.

He’d blamed Nagisa, with those spiteful little parts of himself. As if Nagisa had somehow failed him. As if there was anything that Nagisa could have done that would have made a difference and how cowardly was he to think that way? To try to parse out the blame for his own mistakes onto someone who would take it all on without a single protest, because he already felt the same way as well?

It was never Nagisa’s fault. Never.

And it’s taken all these months by his side for Rei to realize it. And so much more than that. To lose the anger inside him, the spitefulness towards the team he felt he gave his life for, to realize that he was never a replacement swimmer. Realize that every member of that team cared about him, without him ever understanding that they wanted him to be a part of their family. Realize that Nagisa thought he shone brighter than anyone else. Realize that Nagisa would have moved heaven and earth to keep Rei alive.

There is so much more he understands now. So many ways he feels different now. Because he’s grown. He’s dead but he’s grown and he’s still growing and learning and changing and maybe all of that has been a part of his unfinished business too, is becoming a better person himself.

How can he blame Nagisa for not being stronger, for not being faster, when Rei is taller than him, with more muscle mass, a deadweight in the water? How can he blame Nagisa when he knows how much pain Nagisa is in because of what happened? When he knows how much Nagisa cares about him?

There’s only one person responsible for his death, and it’s not Nagisa.

He relaxes the grip on his hair and tilts his head back until it hits the trunk of the tree, staring up at the moon and stars.

He would have never believed so much could change, between when he arrived back here and now. He’d thought it would be so easy. A simple goodbye. A simple fix. A simple closure. And instead what he’s gotten have been some of the most wonderful months he can remember in his whole existence. All the laughter, and the tears. The messy parts and the good ones. All the memories he’ll be able to take with him, of ghost movies and pencils and sleeping side by side.  

The memories...and the realization that one of the most important people he’ll ever meet was the one he’d pegged only as the annoying blonde in a red tracksuit.

Not a single thing about this has been simple. But he’s glad. Sitting here beneath the light of the moon, he can look back over the past few months and be so grateful he had the chance to come back, to say goodbye, to learn, to change, to grow. To meet Nagisa, to truly get to know him. If even only for that, he’s grateful.

And now he knows what he needs to do to get his closure. If he had any doubts about it, there’s a sudden pull in his stomach reminiscent of the ones he’s felt before—the Netherworld, calling him back. So easy.

And yet.

And yet it’s probably the most difficult thing he’s going to ever have to do.

The sudden sobering thought drives each speck of relief and happiness from him all at once and he hunches over, staring at the snow with stomach churning from the panic and the pulling and the sudden thought of what comes next.

He doesn’t want to go. He doesn’t want to leave. He’s fallen in love with watching stars and reading with Nagisa’s fingers turning the pages and pretending to talk to Nagisa through his cellphone and tutoring Nagisa until his face brightens and he spins around in his chair with delight and he’s fallen in love with sleeping beside him and touching their foreheads or fingers together and he’s simply fallen in love with being there by Nagisa’s side, watching him smile and laugh and cry and frown and feel every emotion on earth and he’ll love it all because it’s Nagisa and he—

He doesn’t want to go.

But the longer he puts it off, the longer Nagisa goes on thinking it’s his fault he killed Rei.

The thought is unbearable. Nagisa, his Nagisa, blaming himself for Rei’s mistake. Blaming himself for not being able to save Rei when he probably could barely save himself, could barely manage getting himself to shore let alone with Rei’s body. And then going around trying to live with that weight inside him, always pulling him down, like he’s still dragging Rei’s dead body along with him wherever he goes.

Rei wonders how many times Nagisa has blamed himself for Rei being a ghost in the last few months. How many times he’s blamed himself for Rei not being able to talk to his parents, for not being able to touch things properly, for being invisible to everyone but Nagisa. How many times a day he’s blamed himself for Rei’s death. Just how much of that has Nagisa kept hidden from him, hidden so deep Rei never even thought to check?

He can’t let that go on, not even a single day more. Even if it means the Netherworld will pull him back immediately afterwards, he needs to do this.

In the morning. In the morning he’ll ask Nagisa to come somewhere quiet with him, and they’ll talk.

Rei will make sure Nagisa knows the truth.

And then Rei will leave.

 

***

He goes that night to pay his family one last visit, to brush his hand against theirs and squeeze his eyes shut, praying for them to be happy and not to miss him too much. His mom, his dad, his brother. He hopes they know how much he loves them. Even if he never really expressed it often enough in life, he hopes they can feel how much he loves and misses them. Hopes they have the most wonderful lives possible and don’t have any regrets when they find him in the afterlife, where they can all be together again.

They’ll be alright. He knows it now. They’re going to hurt, but that’s okay. Hurting is natural. But the worst will pass and the days will come when they can remember him and smile and that’s all Rei needs to know. That one day they can think of him and smile.

He finds himself wandering to the indoor pool, walking through the front doors into a dark hallway. He smiles at the old picture hanging haphazardly off the bulletin board a few steps inside. Just little kids, beaming and laughing after winning their relay. Haru. Makoto. Rin. Nagisa. Maybe next season they can recreate that picture perfectly.

He swallows down the disappointment that he’ll never have the chance to try. It’s a funny thing, of everything in life he’s going to miss out on, but he wishes he could have swum a relay, and felt that intangible connection to the team, felt like he was a part of a whole, the proper piece in the proper place. He feels more than anything now that the swim club could have been that place for him. But now Rin is giving up everything that Samezuka has to offer, giving up that chance to swim with some of the best in Japan, to join the tiny Iwatobi swim team, drawn perhaps by that feeling of belonging. Or maybe Rin thinks like Rei, and considers them the best in Japan already.

And now, maybe they have a chance. The whole team fell apart when Rei died, but he’s watched it stitch itself back together and sure the stitches might be a bit messy but they’ll hold.

The last thing to do is stitch Nagisa back into place. To stop him from reliving and reliving something he had no control over. To stop him from looking back, and move forward once more. Even if it means leaving Rei behind.

Rei brushes his fingers against the photo, and his fingers push through until they hit the wall, just barely cutting off the tips of his fingers with the glossy sheet of the picture. He’s a ghost. He’s gone. He’s a thing of the past and it’s only hurting Nagisa to keep him around.

He walks back slowly to the Hazuki house, until the sun starts rising and then he puts most of the track team members to shame with how fast he runs. He doesn’t want Nagisa waking up alone. Not today. He dashes through the front door and turns expertly with his bare feet on the floor, hopping right through the door into Nagisa’s room just as the first rays of light sneak their way through the shade.

Nagisa is still asleep. Still breathing gently, piece of hair flutttering across his cheek.  Rei lies down on his side of the bed and smiles, pillowing his chin on folded arms. If only he could stretch this moment on and on forever. This perfect moment, where it doesn’t matter if he’s alive or not, because he can simply lie here and watch Nagisa sleep soundly.

The sounds of the household waking up begin to filter through the door, but it’s only Nagisa’s sisters, whispering to each other as they head to the kitchen, and then the noise of them preparing breakfast. Nagisa makes a sound of complaint when one of his sisters starts a loud rant about eggs and burrows into the blankets until he’s no longer visible.

Nagisa’s mother knocks on the door a half hour later, calling for him to wake up. Nagisa makes another moan of protest, but the blankets begin to move, and finally his face emerges, hair springing in all directions. He smiles sleepily in Rei’s direction. “G’morning.”

“Good morning,” Rei whispers, and maybe this is his perfect moment instead. Or maybe every moment has been perfect. Even the ones he hated. Every single moment of the past few months—from the happy to the sad to the worried to the lonely to the frustrated to the embarrassed—maybe those have all been perfect moments and he never realized it until they’ve already passed, and there’s nothing he can do to bring them back now.

Nagisa yawns, and starts to extricate himself from the blankets. He hisses when his feet touch the floor. “Cold! Cold, cold, cold, cold…” He hops across the room towards his dresser. “Cold, cold, cold, cold, cold…”

“Put your socks on first then,” Rei tells him sitting up against the head of the bed.

Nagisa thumps down to sit on the floor and rummages through his sock drawer. “I want my fluffy socks,” he declares to the world, and begins to forage. After a few seconds though, he pauses, and takes Rei’s glasses out from the sock drawer almost reverently. “You still need your ghost glasses, Rei-chan!”

Rei stares at the glasses for a moment before nodding slowly. “Yeah. Yeah, that’s right.” He’d forgotten about those. Nagisa reaches up to put the glasses on top of his dresser and goes on to hunt some lurid pink socks with green polka-dots, fuzzy and warm, apparently, because Nagisa stops complaining about the cold when he slips them on over his feet.

It’s while Nagisa is changing into the rest of his clothes, with Rei turned away, that Rei decides to bring up the topic. “Um...so I was thinking we could take a walk today?”

“You can look now, Rei-chan. And okay. Why?”

Rei turns back and his mouth quirks up at the the eclectic mish-mash of colors that is Nagisa’s wardrobe. “I just need to talk to you.”

Nagisa bounds back over to the bed and leaps up on top once more. “What about?”

Rei breathes in, and looks over to the window. It looks like it will snow again later.  

“Things.”

The panic immediately sets into Nagisa’s face and he shuffles forward until his face is as close to Rei’s as possible without touching. Gods, but Rei has become so weak to those eyes. “Did I do something? Did I do something wrong?”

Rei shakes his head, and Nagisa relaxes, settling back on the mattress. “Oh. Good.”

“Just get dressed warm, okay? I thought we could go out of town a little bit. Away from...everything.”

“Oh. Okay.” Nagisa tilts his head to the side, clearly waiting for an explanation, but when it doesn’t come, he hops back off the bed. “I’m going to go eat.”

Rei stays on the bed. There are plenty of days he’s joined Nagisa in the kitchen, Nagisa wolfing down probably three times the food Rei used to eat for breakfast, but now he needs to think of what he needs to say.

There’s so much of it. Too much of it. How can he possibly put into words everything he feels, how terrible he feels for ever letting Nagisa believe anything was his fault, for ever believing it himself, no matter how small a part of him it was? How terrible he was for trying to place blame on Nagisa, even if he never voiced that thought out loud? How these months with Nagisa have made him happier than he’s ever been, and how he hates the idea of having to leave, even when he knows it’s for the best? The dead are dead, and he can’t hold Nagisa back with him just because he’s selfish and wants to stay by Nagisa’s side forever.

But those are all words he’ll have to say. All this time, he’s been trying to find his closure. But what he actually needed to do was help Nagisa find his.

“Rei-chan?” Rei jumps at Nagisa’s voice and spins around to see Nagisa in the doorway, all bundled up in coat and scarf and mittens to match, maybe the only coordination in his entire outfit. The scarf Rei picked out, Rei realizes, matched to light pink mittens. “You wanna go now?”

“Yeah, yeah.” Rei stands, walks past the glasses still on the dresser, and passes by the door that Nagisa holds wide open for him. “I’ll go.” He doesn’t want to. But he will.

 

***

 

They hike up into the hills just outside town, just as the snow begins to flutter down in tiny flakes. There are family shrines all over the place up here, and Rei knows his own family’s shrine is somewhere more off to the left, but he doesn’t want to have this conversation in front of his ashes. It would feel creepy, if he’s being entirely honest. So they walk past the shrines all covered in snow, and Nagisa slips and falls more than once but just laughs each time, nose and ears already red, and Rei smiles. Another perfect moment.

If anyone could see him right now, they’d look ridiculous. Nagisa decked in his winter best while Rei trudges around in his swimsuit, walking casually through the snowbanks. Why couldn’t he have had the chance, just once, to walk beside Nagisa like this, only alive, in his own coat and scarf? To grab Nagisa’s hand to stop him from falling. To find empty patches of snow and make angels to cover the hills.

When he’d first gone to the Netherworld, his only real regret was dying at all, but now he knows how many possibilities might have existed. What could have been. And losing that hurts almost as much as what he has to do now.

Finally, there’s a small hillock with a rock jutting out of the snow. Rei motions for Nagisa to sit down on the rock, and Nagisa does, staring up at Rei expectantly. “What’s this about, Rei-chan?”

Rei takes a deep breath and closes his eyes, trying to assemble the words on his tongue.

“Rei-chan? Are you okay?”

No. “I’m fine. Just give me a minute.” Another deep breath. He cranes his head back and stares up at the sky, heavy with clouds. The snow is beginning to come down faster now. He turns his head back down and sighs, shoulders slumping.

“Nagisa. Can you tell me about the night I died?”

The content expression freezes on Nagisa’s face. “I—I—I…”

“I know you did, once, already,” Rei adds quickly. “But in detail. I need you to tell me.” Rei sighs again, and kneels on the ground in front of where Nagisa sits. “Please tell me.”

Nagisa opens his mouth, lip wobbling like he’s babbling out silent sentences, and then he drops his head and begins to pull at the fringes of his scarf. His voice comes out soft, soft like the snowflakes. “Haru-chan woke up first. And that woke me up. I think he heard you yelling. But you’d have to ask him.” He breathes in. And out, breath shaky like he’s just holding it together. Rei can’t see his face to know. “And then we went to your tent and saw it was empty and I thought you’d both just gone to the bathroom or something but then Haru-chan saw you in the water. You and Mako-chan. Way out there.” Breathes in and out again. “And the two of us went in after you. There wasn’t time to get help.” He may still has his head tilted forward, but it’s not enough to hide the first tear that falls, absorbed into his mitten. “And Haru-chan said he’d get Mako-chan and I said I would get you and—and—and I reached you and you grabbed onto me but—but this big wave—and you were so heavy, I couldn’t...I couldn't…” Another tear, and another, and another. And then Nagisa raises his face, eyes red and chin trembling and looking so vulnerable and broken that Rei wonders if this was the right thing to do after all. “It’s all my fault!” Nagisa cries out, voice cracking and echoing over the hills, even when muffled by the snow. “It’s all my fault and I’m so sorry, Rei-chan, I’m so sorry!” He doesn’t bother trying to wipe away the tears, and the wetness sticks to his skin, freezes in perfect track marks down to where the tears drip from his chin. He squeezes his eyes shut and the fat tears run down his cheeks as he seizes where he sits and coughs out a sob. And another. And another.

Rei doesn’t know what to do. What he _wants_ to do is grab Nagisa tight in his arms, rock back and forth and say it’s not your fault, it’s not your fault, _it’s not your fault_ , but he can’t hold Nagisa, he can’t even touch him and he has _no idea what to say_.

Nagisa sucks in breath again like he’s the one drowning and continues. “I couldn’t save you, I couldn’t save you and when I pulled you up on the beach and you—and you—and you weren’t breathing and I knew...I knew…I tried to make you breath again but you were so cold and you wouldn’t open your eyes.”

“Nagisa…” Rei whispers. “It’s not your fault.”

“And I kept calling your name but you wouldn’t wake up and you never woke up and I should have been faster, I should have been better, I should have saved you, Rei-chan!”

“It’s not your fault,” Rei repeats, because there’s nothing else he can say.

“No!” Nagisa shrieks, and Rei jerks back at the ferocity of it. “It’s all my fault! It’s all my fault. All! My! Fault!” He gives a wordless screech and drops to his knees as the snowflakes fall larger and larger around them. Rei falters and falls, reaching out one useless hand as Nagisa balls his fists in his hair and hacks out sobs onto the snow. The flakes collect on his hat, his coat, his face, where they melt and join the tears running down Nagisa’s face until they grow too heavy and drop hot to the snow. Nagisa heaves in breath, and sobs it back out, and Rei can’t do anything. Helpless. All he has are useless words because Nagisa can’t feel his touch. Nagisa can’t feel anything of him at all because Nagisa is alive and Rei is dead and if he weren’t already dead it would be killing him inside that Nagisa could have kept these thoughts hidden from him for so long, carried this festering guilt inside him.

“I should have been able to save you,” Nagisa spits out, and sucks in breath. “I should have swum faster.” Another breath, another sob, and Nagisa curls himself tighter, so Rei can’t even see his face, can just see the way Nagisa’s mittened fingers clutch at his hair, pulling so tight it must hurt.

“Nagisa, you couldn’t…”

“I could have!” Nagisa raises his face and Rei leaps back, withdrawing his hand that had been hovering so near. Nagisa’s face is crumpled yet furious, eyes swollen and lips trembling as the words slip through. “I could have saved you, Rei-chan...but I couldn’t. I couldn’t. And I...I...I…”

He lowers his head once more, and Rei shuffles forward on his knees, until his hands reach almost to Nagisa’s shoulders, for all the good it will do. What good would it do to feel Rei’s cold, unnatural touch, as solid as mist?

Nagisa shudders, and the next words come out a whisper, barely audible. “I never should have asked you to join the swim club. It’s all my fault. I shouldn’t have asked you to join the swim club.”

No.

“No. No, no, no, don’t you say that!” He doesn’t want to yell, but he needs to yell, needs Nagisa to _hear_ , settles on a loud and firm voice that he hopes will work. “It’s not your fault, Nagisa! None of it, alright? I was the one who decided to go out swimming at night.” Nagisa lifts his head, and Rei gets so close he can see where the light freckles dust across his nose, where the snowflakes land and leave wet kisses behind. “I was the one who did that. I was stupid! I was so stupid, and it was me, not you, you hear? That was my fault, not yours!”

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa starts, lip wobbling, but Rei cuts him off.

“No.” No, Nagisa needs to listen now. “It was my fault. Entirely mine. Not yours, you hear me? You hear me? And…and...and…”

His nose is tickling at the end and his fingers clench helplessly through the material of Nagisa’s scarf as he wills himself to believe it is real, so he can pull at something, touch anything, make Nagisa understand. He needs Nagisa to hear, needs to him listen because this is the truest thing Rei can think to say and if he knows anything for sure, this is it. He leans back and shakes his head slowly from side to side as the tears gather hot in the corners of his eyes. “You...you asking me to join the swim club is the best thing that happened to me!”

“Rei-chan—”

“No, no, you don’t...you don’t…” How can he even say it? How can he say so much at once? That every moment of every day has been a perfect one? That the only thing that he wants more than staying beside Nagisa’s side forever is to make sure Nagisa is happy? Because Nagisa came like a firework into his life and burst everything into vibrant color and Rei can’t remember how it felt before Nagisa was there.

What can he possibly say that will mean everything at once?

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa whispers, eyes gone wide and mouth falling open, but Rei shakes his head and drops his gaze, until he’s the one staring at the snow. “I don’t regret it,” he says. “I don’t regret any of it because joining the swim club is how I met you.”

The words drop into silence.

And then Nagisa laughs. Rei raises his head and there’s Nagisa laughing, as he desperately tries to wipe away the tears that just won’t stop falling. He grabs the end of his scarf and blots at his eyes, and small little cries escape through the peals of laughter. “Rei-chan,” he manages to get out, “Rei-chan, you’re usually so smart. Why are you being so stupid?”

“I’m not—”

“Stupid!” Another laugh. “Stupid, stupid, stupid…” A weaker laugh. “Stupid Rei-chan…” A sob. “Stupid, stupid Rei-chan, stupid, stupid…”

“Nagisa…” Rei whispers, but Nagisa just keeps whispering to himself, tears still falling hot. “Nagisa.”

Finally, Nagisa wipes his scarf over his face and lifts his head. His eyes have gone all puffy, his cheeks and nose turned red with tears and cold. He smiles, a weak little smile without much effort put into it. “You don’t really mean that. If you’d never met me, you’d still be alive. Don’t you want to still be alive?”

“Of course I do,” Rei says, “I want to be alive so badly, but...but I want to be alive with you. And don’t you dare go saying it’s your fault, for any of it. I was the one who decided to go out at night. I was…” He shuts his eyes and shakes his head. “I was frustrated and embarrassed and didn’t want to feel so left behind or like I was burdening the team so I made my decision and it’s all my fault, you got that?” He stops shaking his head and leans in close, catching Nagisa’s eyes with his own. “All my fault, and no one else’s.” He wants to touch Nagisa so badly, wants to wipe away those tears that cling to his eyelashes, press his lips to every freckle he can see. Instead, he leans in until their noses brush, cool to warm, and he feels the laugh bubble up his throat, along with the words. “I take full responsibility.”

Nagisa’s eyes widen, and then he’s laughing too, laughing with the tears still rolling down his face. Just the two of them laughing up there in the snow-laden hills with snowflakes falling all around them, a boy and his ghost, a ghost and his boy, both with tears dripping from their chins, as if every sorrow could somehow escape that way, slide down their cheeks and be gone for good.

“Do you get it now?” Rei asks, once the laughter peters out and quiet envelopes them once more, folds them into an intimate silence. “Do you understand?”

Nagisa wipes at his eyes and pulls his scarf a little tighter around his neck. “I get that you’re stupid. I’m not worth dying over.”

“Nagisa.” Rei reaches out, and hovers his hands at either side of Nagisa’s face, cupping his chin with intangible hands. “You…” Nagisa looks up at him with eyes pink from crying and Rei can’t believe he was enough of an idiot to miss out on this. That he thought he’d be alright out on the ocean by himself. Whether it was pride or simply wanting to stop dragging the team down, it was his decision alone, and that decision is what is costing him now. Is costing him the ability to truly take Nagisa’s face in his hands and kiss the tears from his cheeks because Nagisa can’t possibly understand with just words that, to him, Nagisa is worth everything.

But Nagisa shuts his eyes and brings one hand up to Rei’s, so they can just feel the overlap of warm to cold. Living to dead. “I wish I could touch you,” he whispers, and leans his face into the curve of Rei’s fingers. “I wish...I wish…I wish you weren’t…”

“I wish I wasn’t dead too,” Rei says quietly, and tries to memorize the feel of Nagisa’s warmth against his palm. “But it was my fault. And only mine. Please...I can’t stand it if you blame yourself.”

Nagisa hums, and his brow wrinkles.

“Nagisa.”

Another hum.

“I wasn’t your fault.”

Silence. Rei brushes a thumb along Nagisa’s cheek, and the chill of motion leads to Nagisa opening his eyes. “Say it, please. For me,” Rei says, and tilts his head so they’re forehead to forehead. “Please.”

“But if I…”

“No.”

“I could’ve…”

“ _No_. You did everything you could. I know it. I know you did. There was nothing you could have done.”

“But…”

“Actually, I’m sorry for almost getting you killed as well.”

There’s a brief pause, and then Nagisa’s hands hit his chest and go straight through, but the intent is there. “No!” Nagisa spits, jerking forward, “No you don’t! You don’t!” He shoves through Rei again. “Get!” Again. “To apologize!”

Rei’s still recovering from the shoves when Nagisa stands, shouting down at Rei with mittened hands balled into fists. “You don’t get to apologize for that!”

“I put you in danger,” Rei says simply, and Nagisa stares at him with chest heaving and cheeks turned pink. “I put Makoto-senpai and Haruka-senpai and you all in danger. And I regret that.”

Nagisa shakes his head, lip wobbling as his anger dissipates in an instant. “No, no, don’t be sorry, please…”

Rei rubs at his eyes and sniffs, still not standing up, Nagisa tall above him. “I’m sorry for putting you in danger and...and I’m sorry for dying. I’m so sorry for dying.”

“No, no, no…” Nagisa drops down to his knees and grabs at the air around Rei’s face, like there’s nothing more he wants to do than grab Rei and hold him still. “No, don’t be sorry. Don’t be sorry, _please_ , it’s not your fault. It’s not your fault…”

Rei huffs a laugh and tilts his head to one side, waiting until Nagisa makes eye contact. “If I hadn’t gone out swimming at night, I would still be alive. That’s all there is.” He shrugs helplessly, and holds one hand up, lets Nagisa press their palms together. “I didn’t want to die. I don’t want to be dead. But I want you to know that it wasn’t your fault. I need you to know that.”

“Rei-chan…”

Rei sniffs and glances up at the sky. “Or maybe it wasn’t my fault. I never meant for it to happen. Maybe we can blame the ocean. Or the weather. But maybe they didn’t mean for it to happen either. Maybe sometimes things just happen and that’s…” The words get all twisted up in his throat, and he has to force them out, “Maybe that’s just how things are meant to be. I’m meant to be dead, and you’re meant to be alive, and that’s how the world wants it to be. I don’t know anymore. It’s unfair. But then, maybe the world meant for me to meet you.” He laughs softly and smiles at Nagisa, small and shy. “It’s okay, really. Death is much nicer than I ever thought it would be. I got to say goodbye to my family. I got to see the world again. And I got to know you.” His hand gravitates back to barely cupping Nagisa’s face. “If I hadn’t died, would I have gotten to know you the same way?”

Nagisa scrunches his nose and nods, so Rei’s fingers end up cutting into his cheekbones. “Yes. Of course.”

Rei shrugs one shoulder again. “Maybe.”

“You can’t be okay with this,” Nagisa whispers. “You’re okay with being dead?”

Another huff of a laugh. “Yes? No?” He doesn’t know. “I always thought it would be scary to die, but mostly it means I just regret…” So much. So, so much. “I regret not having more of a life to live. I regret that I have to leave the people I love behind. But I know...but I know I’ll see you all again. It might take a few years, but I will. So it’s okay.” He forces a smile, but it comes easier than he expected. “Really. It’s okay.” He shifts so he’s close to Nagisa once more, and this time the smile comes even easier. “The only thing I would really regret now, going into the afterlife, is knowing you blame yourself for my death.”

Nagisa sucks in breath, and holds it there as Rei watches. He slowly slides a thumb beneath Nagisa’s eye, wishing he could wipe away the tear left there. “It wasn’t your fault,” Rei says gently. “It was never your fault and I can’t stand knowing you think that. Please, tell me…”

“It...it wasn’t my fault,” Nagisa says, words rough and choked out. “It wasn’t my fault...oh _Rei-chan_ …”

And then Rei feels it. Like there’s a tether in his belly, getting ready.

“It’s wasn’t your fault,” he repeats.

“It’s not my fault,” Nagisa says again, and squeezes his eyes shut. “It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault, it’s not my fault….Rei-chan, Rei-chan, _Rei-chan_ …” Rei can see how he’s shaking even through all his layers, and he’s probably shaking too. From exhaustion. From relief. From every single word that he’s bottled up inside that could say so much more but he can’t—he won’t—because that would only make things confusing and even more difficult. Because Nagisa is here with him, and he can finally feel the tug in his stomach that tells him everything. That tells him that this is it.

“It’s not my fault,” Nagisa spits out one last time, the utter relief in his voice almost a physical pain right through Rei’s chest. He opens his eyes wide, and shakes his head slowly, almost in disbelief. “It...it’s not my fault.”

It’s like everything releases and tenses inside him all at once. Rei gasps and holds a hand to his stomach as he feels the tug to Netherworld, stronger than he’s ever felt it, and an unknown tension unwinds, a tension he’d never noticed, leaving him breathless and somehow more weightless than before. He shuts his eyes and rides it out, eyes blown wide.

“Rei-chan?” Nagisa asks after a moment, hiccuping, and Rei looks up to Nagisa’s tear-stained face. This is it. His purpose. His unfinished business. It’s all over now.

“Oh Nagisa,” he whispers, and wants so, so badly to wrap his arms around Nagisa’s waist and feel Nagisa’s arms latching around his neck. To hold and be held. But that’s impossible.

Instead, he squats there in the snow as Nagisa shakes and shakes and tries to breathe and gradually settles. He looks up at Rei with eyes all swollen, and gives a tentative little smile. Rei smiles back, and leans forward just one last time to brush their noses together.

“Let’s go home,” he says softly, and stands up.

Nagisa nods, and uses his scarf to wipe his face. “Yeah. Home.” He stands, and Rei waits until they’re shoulder to shoulder before heading back down the slope. The snow falls around them, fluttering down in large flakes and it’s almost like the rest of the world doesn’t even exist. Just the two of them, up here in the hills.

“Rei-chan?” Nagisa asks after a few minutes, and Rei looks down at him.

“Yes?”

“Thank you,” Nagisa says in a whisper, and sticks his hands in his pockets without looking back up at Rei.

Rei doesn’t bother saying anything back. He’s said all he needs to say. He brushes Nagisa’s cheek with his fingers and smiles when Nagisa turns to him.

“What?” Nagisa asks, cheeks dimpling as he smiles back.

Rei shrugs a shoulder. “Just for that,” he says, and keeps leading them on through the snow.

 

***

 

Rei makes him write it down when they get home after Nagisa has gotten some warm food into him. The list of rules, that hasn’t been needed (or even necessarily heeded) in weeks now.

Rule Number Five: Nagisa will not in any way feel responsible for Rei’s death.

“It’s in writing now,” Rei warns him. “It’s on The List. You have to follow it.”

Nagisa nods, and sniffs, and rubs at his nose with the too-long sleeve of his sweater. “Okay.”

“Promise?”

“I promise.”

“You break the rules all the time though,” Nagisa mumbles, and Rei points a very emphatic finger at the new rule, written in slightly shaky handwriting.

“This rule is one we always follow. Forever. Okay?”

Nagisa stares up at him, and after a moment, his face relaxes into a smile, small and tentative. “Are you sure?”

“Completely sure.”

Rule Number One: Rei sleeps on the bed.

Rule Number Two: No Touching Without Permission

Rule Number Three: No I Will Not Write in Blood on the Walls

Rule Number Four: Nagisa Must Begin to Pass His Tests

Rule Number Five: Nagisa will not in any way feel responsible for Rei’s death

And then, that last one, that promise. To say goodbye before he leaves. Something he’ll have to do soon. Too soon. Too soon it’s unfair. But the tugging sensation is only becoming more insistent with every passing hour, almost painful, the weightlessness inside him leaving him more and more detached, and he knows there’s only so long he’ll be able to fight it. He doesn’t belong in this world anymore, not now that his purpose is complete. And everything needs to be put back in its proper place.

Nagisa pushes back from the desk and goes to flop on the bed, kicking his feet in the air in little circular motions. “I’m tired,” he mumbles. Which makes sense. Half of his day has been spent crying. Rei leans against the wall and crosses his arms across his chest as he watches Nagisa’s legs slowly cutting through the air, and how is it possible he can find such a simple action so endearing?

It’s ridiculous to think about how just six months ago he found Nagisa an overenthusiastic nuisance. And now, each time he catches himself staring, it’s with a smile. He’s lucky he’s invisible to everyone else or he’d never hear the end of it.

He thinks of the Nagisa he’d found when he first returned. Barely eating, always exhausted, weighed down by grief and guilt. And now. Now Nagisa is happy again. He smiles just the way Rei remembers before he died, although he’d never felt his chest ache in the same way back then whenever he saw that smile.

He goes and lies down on the bed next to Nagisa, uses one arm to hold his head up and watches Nagisa bury his face in his pillow.

“I’m tired Rei-chan,” Nagisa says again after a moment.

Rei lets his own head fall to the mattress. “You could sleep.”

“Mmmph.” Nagisa turns his head to look hard at Rei, and after a minute, he opens his mouth. Closes it again. Opens it. “I think I know.”

Rei blinks. “Know what?”

“Why you can touch things and not touch other things.”

Rei sits up again and leans against the headboard. “Wait, why?”

Nagisa sits up as well and reaches for the pillow behind him and, before Rei can react, he swings it through Rei’s stomach.

Rei winces at the sensation and narrows his eyes. “Who’s breaking the rules now?”

“But see?” Nagisa says, ignoring Rei, “You can lean against the bed but can’t touch a pillow! You can walk on the floor but it took you weeks to be able to touch a pencil! It’s not about you! It’s about other people!”

Rei frowns and tilts his head to one side. “What?”

Nagisa sighs, like Rei is being so impossibly slow he can’t stand it. “I always thought it was weird when you were talking about a lot of people coming back for their closure or whatever you want to call it, because then wouldn’t we have a lot more ghost stories? Even if it’s just moving pencils around? Wouldn’t so many people coming back to say goodbye cause a lot of problems if you could all pick up objects or touch people?”

Rei breathes out. “Oh…”

Nagisa stares at him, grin stretching ear to ear. “So it’s not because you’re a bad ghost, Rei-chan! It’s because this afterlife or Netherworld or whatever it is has rules. You can touch solid surfaces naturally because that won’t affect anything. But if you were able to touch people or objects easily, then just think how many ghosts would cause trouble!”

“But I’m able to walk through doors…”

Nagisa nods. “Yes, well, you needed to be able to walk through doors. And didn’t you say something about expectation? And the fact you were able to move the pencil proves that you _are_ able to break the rules if you really want to. Or perhaps if you need to? But I bet anything that the reason you can’t easily move objects or…” He moves a hand, and skims it across Rei’s arm. “Or touch people is because it keeps things simpler. Neater.” He draws his hand away and smiles up at Rei. “I still think you need to be able to believe you can touch things. Like, if really truly believe that the pencil is there and you can touch it as easily as you can the floor. And want it, of course. You need to want it. But it’s not you. It’s just how ghosts have to be.” He shrugs, and smiles, softer this time. “Or at least, that’s what I think. Maybe I’m all wrong.”

Actually, it makes an astonishing amount of sense, considering what he knows about the Netherworld. “I...think that actually makes some sense,” Rei admits, and Nagisa beams. Beams, and then yawns.

“I’m still tired though.”

“Take a nap,” Rei tells him softly, “I’ll wake you up after a complete sleep cycle.”

Nagisa scrunches his nose up and laughs a little as he slips underneath the covers and curls himself up tight. Rei rolls his eyes fondly and sits back, and wonders just how badly he needs to want to something to be able to break the rules and touch it.

 

***

 

He fights the tug of the Netherworld for as long as he can, to the point it becomes painful to move. But he doesn’t let Nagisa know. Can’t let Nagisa know. Not when Nagisa is finally sleeping peacefully, and smiling at Rei with a light that Rei hadn’t realized was missing. The next day they go to the movies with Kou and Hana. It turns out Kou has the same taste in movies Nagisa does, so Hana and Rei spend a lot of time hiding behind their respective protectors, and in the darkness of the theater no one can see how Nagisa keeps looking at how Rei has tucked himself behind Nagisa’s shoulder and giggling.

By the next day, the pull is so hard he can only force a smile whenever Nagisa looks his way, and spends all his other time clutching at his stomach and willing himself to hold on just a little longer. Just a few more days. He’s not ready to go.

Nagisa goes over to Haru’s place, to meet with the newly formed Iwatobi swim team. Rei stays for a while, watching from the corner as Nagisa plays easy peacemaker with his laughter and jokes, and sees the significant looks shared between Haru and Makoto. So they see the difference too. At last. Six months since Rei died, and Nagisa has finally truly come back to life.

He’s grateful for the chance to say goodbye to everyone. He doesn’t say anything out loud or do anything of course, nothing to let Nagisa onto him, but in his head he says goodbye and thanks every single member of the swim club. For accepting him. For teaching him. For considering him one of them and giving him a chance. And for taking care of Nagisa now that he has to leave. The very thought makes the pain in his stomach triple, and he hisses, trying to pull it together. He sneaks over to Nagisa and mutters that he’s going for a walk, and Nagisa gives a small little nod. Rei heads straight for the front door and immediately doubles over, gritting his teeth and trying to pray to the Netherworld. Not yet. Not yet.

But he no longer has a place here. No longer has a place at Nagisa’s side. The weightlessness he feels, is that a sign of how he’s no longer bonded to Nagisa through their unfinished business? But how is he supposed to say goodbye now, now that everything has become so good, so right? How is he supposed to look into Nagisa’s eyes and tell him that this is the end? That this is the last time they’ll see each other. How? How can he do that?

But Nagisa is happy now. He has other friends who can take their place at Nagisa’s side. He’ll be alright.

But Rei feels sick at the idea of having to look into those big eyes that he’s grown to love so much, to watch them fill with tears as Rei keeps his promise and says goodbye. He can’t do it. He can’t.

He’s waiting by the door when Nagisa comes out, all smiles now while he pretends the pain isn’t there, and Nagisa chatters happily into his cellphone all the way to the train, and then on the train, and back to his house, talking about how Rin’s transfer is going through and how Kou has a whole new training regimen worked out and how they’re already organizing joint training sessions with Samezuka. Samezuka hadn’t made it past regionals this past season, but Nitori has apparently already been talking about some rumors regarding a new transfer in and a couple of promising freshmen. When the two teams meet for joint practice, that’s when they’ll be able to size everything up, Nagisa tells Rei, bouncing happily as he walks.

Rei watches the Hazuki family eat dinner that night. He doesn’t want to waste time in the bedroom when he can be watching Nagisa eat. It may be loud, but every so often Nagisa looks up at him and smiles and Rei curses himself for ever missing out on this. For missing out on those precious seconds he might have had, seconds that are quickly slipping through his fingers as the pull in his stomach begins to feel like it will tear him apart. He won’t be here by tomorrow morning, he’s sure.

He takes the time he has to say goodbye to the people who never knew he was there, but sheltered him for so long. Goodbye, Nagisa’s parents. Goodbye, Ren and Chiasa and Mizuki.

Nagisa ends up borrowing a videogame from Ren and playing it for hours while draped over a chair in her room, which has been transformed halfway into a storage facility ever since she moved out. Ren herself lies on the bed with her laptop, so Rei hunkers down by the chair and watches Nagisa play, occasionally whispering advice. Nagisa fails the same level five times in a row and gives up, broody while he goes to fetch pajamas and to take a shower. Rei returns to Nagisa’s room, and takes the alone time to say goodbye to the room as well. To the giant stuffed bear. To the bookshelf. To the pile of clothing that is growing truly monstrous. He finds himself staring at his glasses—never properly returned to the sock drawer—when Nagisa joins him, freshly scrubbed and already yawning. Nagisa turns off the lamp on the dresser and doesn’t bother plugging in the lights still hung up around the room as he goes to clamber into bed, using the light of the moon and stars shining through the window to guide him. He tucks himself beneath the covers and clears his throat, waiting expectantly for Rei to join him. Rei doesn’t move from where he’s studying the glasses.

“You can try again later, Rei-chan,” Nagisa tells him with yawn. “You just have to want it hard enough.”

“Yeah. You’re right.” Rei winces at a particularly hard tug, and makes sure he’s facing away from Nagisa when he presses a hand hard against his stomach, trying to quell the pain. When he fixes his expression he turns to find Nagisa has already wrapped himself into a burrito. “Cold already?”

Nagisa yawns again. “Tired already. You want to read that book we’re working on?”

Rei sucks in breath, but shakes his head. The book will have to go unfinished. No happy endings this time. “No, not if you’re tired.”

Nagisa nods a little. “Yeah. Yeah, I am. Get into bed, Rei-chan.” He reaches one arm out to pat Rei’s side of the bed.

Rei walks obediently around to his side of the bed and lays carefully on the mattress. He turns his head in Nagisa’s direction, and Nagisa smiles sleepily at him, face lit up with starlight. “See you tomorrow, Rei-chan,” he whispers, and nuzzles his face into his pillow.

How can Rei tell him? How can Rei tell him to open his eyes because it’s time for goodbye? How? How? They haven’t done enough. Their last night shouldn’t have been videogames and an early goodnight. He wants Nagisa to turn on the Christmas lights, to trap him in a blanket fort that’s just the two of them, wants to gather close until he can whisper all those precious nothings he needs to, wants to watch the stars and moon and let Nagisa catch snowflakes on his tongue, wants to ride the train all night and walk along the shore, following the waves up and down the beach. Wants so much he can’t have. Wants this to not be goodbye.

It’s going to kill him, all over again, to tell Nagisa to open his eyes, because it’s time to say goodbye.

“Nagisa?” he whispers, eyes clenched shut, but Nagisa only replies with steady, even breathing. Asleep.

How could Rei wake him up now? Wake him up and say it’s all over now, like all of this could have been a dream.

He promised. He promised he would say goodbye. He laughs, a pitiful little laugh, and reaches one hand out, as if to stroke the hair from Nagisa’s cheek, but he stops, fingers just shy of their goal.

He’s such a coward that he can’t stand it. But he can’t think of any way he’ll be able to bear this, and there’s nothing. No way he is getting out of here without leaving half of an unbeating heart behind.

But first.

He sits up and gets out of bed, returning once more to the dresser. To believe that they’re there. And to really, truly want it. He never truly wanted it before, because it was one more excuse to put off leaving. _I want my glasses, so I can’t leave yet._ But there’s no stopping it now.

He wants to be able to see Nagisa’s face in perfect clarity, just once before he leaves. The ache of that need is nearly stronger than the pull of the Netherworld.

He brings a fist down, and watches the glasses snap in half beneath the pressure.

And then...a second pair of glasses, superseded on top of the broken pair. Rei smiles. Ghost glasses. Nagisa was right. With his crazy logic that somehow made sense in the end. He reaches down and picks the ghost glasses out of the broken mess of the original pair. They feel just as solid to him as his own body. He shuts his eyes, places the glasses on his nose, and opens his eyes once more.

He’d gotten so used to blurs and blobs that the sudden clarity is startling. The texture on the walls, the slight smudges on the window, the pattern of the stitching on the blankets. All these little details he’s missed before now.

Another vicious tug, and he grunts, doubling over. He’s pretty sure that if he’d eaten anything in the past six months, he would have lost it just now. He has minutes left, maybe, before he’ll have to give in. He needs to make them count.  

He climbs carefully back up onto the bed, and there. Nagisa’s face, except this time Rei really can make out the individual freckles on his face, make out the exact curve of his lips and the way his hair waves back and forth and curls away at the sides with the individual strands that have strayed across his face. Eyebrows relaxed and eyelashes hiding those eyes Rei wishes he could have seen just one last time.

He’s beautiful, and Rei throws a hand up to bite down on his thumb, throat beginning to ache.

He’d always promised he’d say goodbye.

But he can’t do it. Can’t, because all it will take are a few words from Nagisa and he’d probably be convinced to stay here forever, until the tug in his stomach and the Nagisa’s barbs inside him tear him completely in two.

And so, Rei pushes his glasses a little further up his nose and leans over the bed, watches the tears splatter across the lenses. He lowers himself right so he speaks almost directly into Nagisa’s ear. “Goodbye, Nagisa,” he breathes, and—finally—lets go, allowing the pull to drag him in an instant back to the Netherworld.

 

* * *

 

 

The bed, counterintuitively, somehow seems colder without Rei in the morning. Nagisa blinks at the empty space, and then glances around the room. No Rei. “Rei-chan?” he whispers, just in case Rei actually is there, but no one answers.

Five minutes later he’s running out the front door with coat and scarf thrown haphazardly over his pajamas, both parents yelling for him to come back. “Rei-chan!” he shouts as he runs, because it no longer matters to him if anyone hears him now.

He slips at an icy curb and goes down hard on the road, but scrambles back up and looks all around him. Rei’s parents. Maybe he’s there.

He shows up at the Ryugazaki household panting for breath and with no idea how to frame the question. _Has the ghost of your dead son shown up this morning?_

“How are you?” he asks instead, trying to come off as casual as he pants and pants and almost falls over in the doorway, and Rei’s mother frowns.

“Nagisa-kun, are you alright?”

“I am totally fine!” he gasps out and wow he needs to ramp up his fitness regimen if he’s got a stitch in his side already. “Um...do you happen to feel any mysterious drafts?”

Rei’s mom is just looking more and more concerned. “No? Are you sure you wouldn’t like to—”

“I’m sure!” He manages a desperate grin and then darts off again, slipping down the stairs twice on the way back down to the street.

He runs down to the peer. He runs down the street with the cafe where they’d sat and Nagisa had play acted at it being a date. He runs to Haru’s, and to Makoto’s and to the Matsuoka household. Rei isn’t there. He runs off again before any of them can drag him inside and phone his parents.

He can’t run straight for the tears messing up his vision and nearly runs into a lamppost before he reaches a place he can overlook the school pool. No Rei. No Rei anywhere at all. Nagisa clutches at the chainlink fence so hard that his hands cramp and presses his forehead against the metal, clenching his teeth and trying so hard not to cry. If he starts crying, he’ll never get back up again. If he starts crying, he’ll probably forget how to do anything but.

Rei left. Rei left him.

Rei left him _again_ , and he didn’t even say goodbye.

Eventually, he trudges back home and accepts the stern lecture from his parents, who’d been receiving phone calls from almost every household he’d visited. It takes all the energy he has left to drag himself to his room, which is when he sees them.

Rei is gone, and all he left is a pair of broken glasses.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Welp.  
> New chapter up next Monday!


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the response on the last chapter! And shoutout to the anon who kindly pointed out Adele's newest song can be absolutely heartbreaking with this story in mind. You might have made me cry. So there was that. Hope you enjoy the update!

The Netherworld doesn’t come as quite the shock this time. White nothingness is white nothingness, after all. He’s glad he has his glasses though. At the very least, it’s reassuring to know things are supposed to look slightly fuzzy in all the mist. And now he won’t bother Nagisa anymore by always looking too far left when talking to him.

Oh. Right.

Rei sighs, and tugs at the goggles around his neck. He could probably take them off and leave them behind now, but he’s gotten sort of fond of them these last bunch of months. They were handy in a pinch, at least. He squeezes the elastic once before he puts his hands on his hips, trying to ignore the cavernous feeling in his chest. He should feel fulfilled right now, not empty. He accomplished his purpose. Nagisa will be alright now. And Rei had his chance to see everyone, one last time. He can’t complain.

There must be some landmark around here that shows him the way to the afterlife. That’s what comes next, isn’t it? Eternal happiness and all that?

He wonders how Nagisa is doing.

Guiltily—and not even sure who he’s trying to hide it from—he waves his hand through the mist how he remembers, trying to conjure up an image of Nagisa’s bedroom. And it is there, for a moment, the familiar dresser and lamps and bed and pile of clothes. No Nagisa though, and the image fades before Rei can get a really good look. He’ll need to practice.

No, no, _no_ he won’t need to practice, he needs to find the way to the afterlife. The man had said that souls stayed in the Netherworld to keep watch over those who might still need their guidance. No one needs Rei’s guidance. He’s burden free, ready to depart. The afterlife is probably a very nice place and if he just gets there everything will feel okay, right?

Except how does he get there? There are no handy flashing signs. He’s going to have to wander around and hope he finds either a.) the way in or b.) someone to ask. He wishes he’d gotten the name of the man who helped him last time because he hates the thought of having to wander around the Netherworld again. The longer he’s here he knows the urge to draw up images of Nagisa is going to grow stronger and stronger and he really just needs to keep his mind busy so he can ignore the way he’s crumbling away inside.

He cups his hand around his mouth and shouts, “Hello? I need help getting into the afterlife, thank you!”

No one answers. Rei frowns and walks a little farther before cupping his hands once more. “Can someone help me please?”

And again, nothing. Rei huffs and walks with fists bunched this time. Really, the whole dying process needs to be much more streamlined. It’s ridiculous that souls could be stuck here and not even know how to reach the afterlife. Who’s organizing this whole deal? And how long has it been in place? Perhaps the system needs some modifications, to make it more suitable to the modern age. Yes. Yes, that would work. Maybe he should just find the person who’s in charge of this whole thing and—

He nearly trips over the outstretched legs. “Ack!” he cries, arms pinwheeling, but he straightens up before he can fall, spinning around with a glare.

“Oh. Hello again,” the man says pleasantly from the ground, and expertly wipes away the scene of the living in front of him. He leans back on his hands and smiles up at Rei.

Rei can’t exactly be mad for long at someone who helped him so much the last time. He breathes in deep and sits next to man, knees pulled up to his chest. “Hello.” He doesn’t bother with the ‘where’d you come from’. The Netherworld doesn’t make any sense.

“And how did things go?” the man asks, turning his head as his smile grows warmer. Rei frowns. He feels like this should be a bit more dramatic, perhaps some sort of criticism. He was gone for months, after all. That’s unusual, right? But time passes differently in the Netherworld, doesn’t it? Maybe it didn’t seem like such a long time from here. Maybe it feels natural to simply pick up the conversation like he was only gone for five minutes.

“They...they went.” He nods, like that will somehow convince himself his words are true. “They went well. It turns out I had some unfinished business, but I took care of everything I was supposed to, I think.”

“That must have been a lot. You were there for a long time.” So it _had_ seemed like a long time. Rei narrows his eyes defensively, but there’s nothing accusatory in the man’s tone. Nothing to suggest that anything Rei did was wrong. “I’m glad you were able to find your closure.”

“Yeah.” Rei turns his head to look at his knees, and taps a rhythm on one leg. “Closure.”

Closure. Nagisa’s smile, the light in his eyes, the expression on his face as he slept through Rei’s final goodbye. Closure.

The idea of closure is making him feel sort of sick. Maybe bringing all these memories with him wasn’t a good idea.

But sitting here moping isn’t going to help. He did what he had to. Nothing more. Nothing less. And now he’s here. That’s irreversible. No changing it. “Um, do you know how to get to the afterlife?” he asks, turning back to the man.

Who simply raises an eyebrow at him, looking puzzled. “Don’t you feel the pull?”

“What pull?”

The man gestures at his own stomach. “In here. The afterlife should be guiding you into it.”

“Is it painful?” Rei remembers how much the pull back to the Netherworld had hurt. But the man shakes his head.

“No, no, I’ve been living with it for years, but you should be able to feel it. Everyone does, after they’ve had their closure and are ready to move on. If the afterlife isn’t calling you, then I’m not sure how you can reach it.”

“Wait, what?” Rei slaps his hands down on the ground and unfolds his legs. “Then what’s wrong with me?” The man reaches out towards Rei’s shoulder, but Rei leaps to his feet instead. “The Netherworld pulls me back here, and now I can’t even get to the afterlife? Why then…” So unfair. “Why would I…” Is he trapped here forever? “What is this?”

The man grunts as he stands upright, and his hands on Rei’s shoulders are very firm, preventing him from pacing. “You don’t feel any sort of pull?”

Rei blinks, looks down at his stomach where he had felt the tug back to the Netherworld most strongly, and then looks back up at the man. “No?”

“Nothing at all? Not towards anything?”

The only thing he really feels is an ache, telling him that this would all feel better if only he was safe by Nagisa’s side.

“Only back home,” he says, trying to play it off as a joke, but his voice breaks on the last word. He gives up.

The man follows him back down to the ground, never letting go of Rei’s shoulders. Rei wraps his arms around his chest and sucks in a shaky breath as he closes his eyes. “I want to go home,” he whispers, and curls his knees up. “I don’t want to be stuck here.”

He takes another shaky breath, and the man’s hands stay on his shoulders, grounding him. “It’ll be alright,” the man says gently. “Let’s just think about this. We’ll think it through. You can’t feel any pull to the afterlife?”

Rei shakes his head.

“Nothing at all?”

“No,” Rei grumbles, hiding his face in his knees. If he’d known returning to the Netherworld would just mean being stuck here with nothing to do but think of all the things he didn’t have a chance to do and everything he regrets, he would have chosen to stay with the living until the Netherworld’s call tore him in two. Even if he could have lasted just a few more days. Maybe he would have gathered the courage to say a proper goodbye. Maybe he wouldn’t be feeling so sick with guilt and longing and the need to see Nagisa one last time. If the afterlife doesn’t want him, why would the Netherworld pull him back at all? Is he being punished in some strange purgatory? Why couldn’t he just stay among the living for a while longer? He wasn’t causing any trouble. He didn’t do anything to deserve being punished like this!

“Maybe you’re not quite done.”

“What?” he raises his head and opens his eyes, just to watch the man fall back on his rear and shake his head with a slight smile of disbelief, like he’s completely floored by the words he’d just said himself. “What is it?” Rei asks, a tad testy, when the man doesn’t answer right away, just keeps shaking his head from side to side. The man stops and straightens up a little, but the smile stays.

“I said that maybe you’re not quite done.”

“With what?” Rei snaps.

“With the living.”

Rei frowns, and tucks his knees in tighter to his chest, hugging them to him. “No, that’s not true. I did everything I needed to! I said goodbye to my parents. I saw my friends. And I...I helped someone get past my death.” He taps his fingers on the ground irritably. “And I know that had to be my unfinished business since he was the only one who could see me!”

The man nods slowly. “Ah. That would be Nagisa-kun?”

Rei blinks. Pauses for a beat, expecting an explanation, and when he doesn’t get one, he starts to feel a little horrified. “Wait...were you spying on me?”

The man tilts his head to the side with the same patient smile. “No. Like I told you before, I watch my family.” He turns away from Rei, and expertly waves a hand through the mist, pulling up the vibrant image of a now familiar kitchen, where two red-headed siblings prepare dinner, side by side, the older one ruffling the younger’s hair affectionately as he reaches over her to grab a stirring spoon.

“You’re...you’re Kou-san and Rin-san’s father,” Rei whispers, and stares at the man’s face, the expression he wears as he watches his children. “Why didn’t you tell me before?”

“It didn’t seem relevant at the time,” the Matsuoka father says, and scatters the image, the colors hanging in the mist before fading altogether. “I knew who you were, but I didn’t want to complicate things for you. I didn’t realize how long your visit would take. You didn’t think you had any unfinished business when you left. I thought you’d take a few days to say goodbye and come right back.”

“Yes, well…” Rei shrugs one shoulder. His simple plans always seem to get complicated whenever a certain someone gets involved.

The Matsuoka father sends him a smile. “But now you must have unfinished business again. That’s the only thing I can think of. Somehow, between completing your business with the living and returning to the Netherworld, you created something new that you have to address before you can move on to the afterlife.”

Rei lets his knees drop to either side so he sits cross-legged, and leans forward with a frown. “But what…how long has it been since I left? What could have changed?”

The man’s forehead creases and he copies Rei to sit cross-legged before him. “I would guess it took a few days for your soul to find its way back here. That’s how long it took mine. I think once our souls know the way here, it doesn’t take as long to get back the second time. Plus by then all the death ceremonies have been performed and there’s nothing for our souls to really hang around for. So yeah, a few days. Three or four maybe. Five on the outside.”

Rei lets out a frustrated groan and squeezes his eyes shut, tilting his head back.  “What did I do wrong?”

But he doesn’t get an answer. He tilts his head back down and opens his eyes, to find the Matsuoka father simply smiling at him, a little half-smile that just tugs up one corner of his mouth. “Well, what sort of thing did you leave unfinished?”

“I don’t know!” Rei pushes his glasses up his nose and crosses his arms across his chest. “I don’t know.” The Netherworld had pulled him back. That’s _proof_ that he did everything he had to. He didn’t do anything wrong. If he still had something to finish up, it’s the Netherworld’s fault more than anything for bringing him back too soon.

He groans again, and glances over at the Matsuoka father once more, who’s still smiling at him with soft, sympathetic eyes. “I…” Rei starts, and pauses as he gathers up his words. “I think Kou-san and Rin-san are going to be happier now.”

The man nods, and looks down at his hands, entwined in his lap. Rough, fisherman’s hands, weathered and tanned. “I think so too.”

“So I guess me dying did some good things, at least,” Rei says, shrugging one shoulder and trying to sound as nonchalant as he can.

“I wouldn’t think of it like that.”

Rei frowns. Why not? His dying did enough bad things. Why isn’t he allowed the consolation that at least _something_ good came out of it?

The Matsuoka father must catch onto what he’s thinking before he has to say it. “Is it fair to tell ourselves that good came out of our deaths so it must somehow be okay? To try to rationalize why we had to die? Bad things happened because you died as well so how do we measure how much our lives were worth? My children may have ended up perfectly happy without your death.”

“But Rin-san is transferring because I died.”

“And it’s fair to say you traded your life so my son would transfer schools?”

“Well, no, but…”

“How many good things would have to happen after you died to make it worth your death?”

“I…” Rei stops, and pushes his glasses up into his hair so he can rub at his eyes. “I don’t know. It doesn’t matter. I just need to know how to get out of here.” He pushes the palms of his hands harder into his eyes and grits his teeth. “I just want out of here. I want...I want it to stop hurting. Will getting to the afterlife stop everything from hurting?”

“I’m not sure. Never been.”

Rei squeezes his eyes shut tighter, trying to think of the things that happened because he died. The swim team missing the season. Rin deciding to transfer. Rin and Haru working out the problems between them. And Nagisa...Nagisa…

“Nagisa…” he whispers, so soft his own ears can barely pick it up, and feels the prickle of tears the moment the name leaves his lips. “Nagisa, please...please help me see Nagisa, just one more time.” He lifts his face and pushes his glasses back down so he can see. He’s got to look pathetic, nearly crying over something like this. But the Matsuoka father only smiles at him, and moves closer. He takes Rei’s wrist in his hand and raises it, waits for Rei to follow his lead and flatten his hand, spreading his fingers as he does so. Rei nods, a minute little motion of his head, and the man slowly guides his hand through the mist. The colors leap into life behind his touch, reds and blues and golds, all whirling into place far more vibrant than Rei’s own pathetic attempt earlier.

And there’s Nagisa, lying in his bed in the dark, a stack of books beside him. All his favorites, Rei realizes, with those dog-ears and happy endings reread time and time again until the pages wore thin. Nagisa himself is all wrapped up in blankets, and his eyes are a puffy pink. In his hands he holds a pair of broken glasses.

“Nagisa…” Rei whispers, reaching with the other hand, but as soon as his fingers brush the image, the colors scatter and the image disappears. Rei’s fingers clutch at nothing.

“What was the reason for your return the first time?” The man’s voice is very soft and quietly reassuring.

Rei stares at the space where Nagisa had been, and bites at his lip a little before answering. “To help him. To make him understand that it wasn’t his fault. To make sure he’d be okay.” He looks over to the man, who sits so comfortably at his side, so willing to listen and to help him. A father. “So what does that mean?”

The man hums, and then moves again to grip both of Rei’s shoulders, ducking his head to stare straight into his eyes. “So your reason for returning was for him. Then what happened down there that made it so you can’t cross into the afterlife? What unfinished business between the two of you was created when you left?”

“I—I—I…” Rei stammers into silence, and the man’s hold on his shoulders loosens.

What happened down there, in those few months?

Train rides and ghost movies and a small hand turning pages so he could squint to see the words. Adventures with pencils and walking through doors and five little rules, written down carefully in Nagisa’s best penmanship. The way Nagisa had pushed the hot chocolate to the middle of the table and talked to him through his cellphone so he wouldn’t draw attention. Sitting up on the rooftop for lunch with the rest of the team where only Nagisa can see him and smiles up at Rei whenever he can. Lying side by side at night, holding whispered conversations, foreheads pressed together or hands entwined between them.

Nagisa. Nagisa happened in every single way a person could happen. And Rei had changed, he knows, had opened up and let Nagisa in and suddenly he could believe he could truly shine brighter than everyone else, because Nagisa made that possible. Because Nagisa made anything and everything possible. Nagisa was his own personal starlight.

The answer comes slowly, but so obvious he can’t believe he didn’t realize it before. “I fell in love with him, didn’t I?” he asks softly. “I fell in love with him.”

He hugs his legs tight to him, pushing the man’s hands off his shoulders as the laugh bubbles up. “I—I—I fell in love with him. I’ve been in love with him and I never even noticed!”

Oh no.

Oh no, oh no, oh no.

“But I’m dead,” he whispers, still laughing a little hysterically. “I’m dead and he’s alive and I can’t love him, I can’t love him but I _do_ and...and…” He looks to the Matsuoka father, who is watching him with furrowed brow. “When it hurts like this, does that mean it’s love?”

The man shrugs one shoulder, watching Rei with concern. “Love can do many things,” he says slowly, “Including hurt.”

Rei gives up and flops down onto the ground, spread-angled. His chest heaves up and down as he tries to stop laughing, tries to keep the laughter from turning into tears. “This is why I can’t go to the afterlife, isn’t it? My unfinished business. I’m in love with him.”

“Mmm…” the man hums, “There are plenty of people who have gone into the afterlife while leaving someone they love on earth.”

Rei groans, and covers his eyes. The whiteness is getting tiring to look at. “Then what? What am I doing wrong? Why can’t I move on?”

The man makes a noncommittal noise.

Rei sighs deeply and says in a slightly softer voice, “What can I even do?”

“That’s up to you.”

“You’re not being very helpful this time,” Rei grumbles.

A hand on his leg. Warm. “How am I supposed to help when you already know what you need to do?”

Rei sits up and tries to make his face look as plaintive as possible. “No, I don’t know! I’ve never had to deal with anything like this! I never planned on falling in love! Especially after I’m dead! I mean…” He glances down at his hands, clenches and unclenches them in his lap. “I can’t take him on dates, or hold him, or even touch him. I can’t love him. I can’t love him like this!”

And for the first time, he’s truly, truly furious. “I was so stupid!” he yells, batting away the hand on his leg as he stands up. “So stupid!” he yells again, hands clenching in his hair. “Why did I go swimming alone, I knew it wasn’t safe, I saw the storm clouds coming so why did I? Why? Why?” He wishes there was something to hit, something to beat with his fists, preferably himself from six months ago, but all he can do is stomp a foot like an entitled three-year-old. “I was so stupid! We could have had everything! Everything! I would have fallen in love with him anyway and...and...and we could have been happy, so happy!” He can feel the tears running down his face, and he pushes his glasses up and shoves his palms over his eyes, so hard it hurts. “I ruined everything!” he screams into the nothingness of the Netherworld, voice sucked away by the vast expanse of emptiness. “I ruined everything and now I’m dead and there’s nothing I can do! Nothing!” Stamp of his foot. “Nothing!” Stamp. “Nothing!” Stamp, stamp, stamp, stamp. He hunches over and tries to muffle his scream with his hands, but it doesn’t do much good. He screams again. Like if he screams enough he’ll somehow find himself waking up on a beach with Nagisa leaning over him.

_“I’m so happy you’re okay, Rei-chan! I really thought you were a goner there!”_

But no. That was a maybe. A might-have-happened. And no amount of wishing is going to take him back.

Miracles like that don’t exist.

He falls backwards and lands awkwardly on one leg, which folds beneath him so he tumbles to the ground. He sits there, hands pressed over his eyes and chest heaving with screams still longing to be let free. “I love him,” he whispers instead, and all the fight leaves him at once, his entire body slumping. “I love him, I love him, I love him and I want him to be happy. More than anything, I want that.”

He looks over to where the Matsuoka father still sits patiently, not fazed at all by his temper tantrum. “I didn’t say goodbye,” he admits in a husky whisper. “I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t bear the way he’d look at me…”

The man shakes his head again, very slow. “I’m not the one you need to explain things to.”

Rei stares at him for a moment, and then hides his eye eyes once more in his forearm. “But I can’t do that anymore! I don’t have the chance!” He sniffs, and pulls one knee up to rest his forehead on. “It’s not fair. Why did I have to fall in love with someone after I was already dead? Why did…” He clenches his teeth and shuts his eyes, thinks of the water filling his lungs and dragging him downwards into darkness. If only he’d been able to grab hold of the hand offered out, pulled himself gasping and hacking up water onto the sand, laid there hand in hand with Nagisa staring up at the sky, battered but alive. Why not that? Why?

He can see it now. The way he would have fallen for Nagisa gradually. Taking the train to and from school together every morning, sitting squished side by side. Spending endless hours in the pool, practicing dives and perfecting techniques in the sparkling water with Nagisa’s laugh echoing in the air. Nagisa coming over to his apartment again and again, making himself slowly at home until Rei’s parents never even question his arrival at the door. And then, since Rei is being realistic about his courage regarding all things romance, Nagisa would ask if they should go see a movie together. Or maybe take Rei to that little cafe, and put the drink right in the middle of the table for them to share. And then maybe they’d walk hand in hand down the beach, shoes and socks held in their other hands, with the water just a little frigid, and Rei would probably be sweating like mad but Nagisa wouldn’t care. And he wouldn’t care that Rei’s hands would shake as they cupped Nagisa’s face to kiss him for the very first time.

All things they will never have. Because he decided to take a boogie board out on the sea one night with the storm clouds rolling in above him. Because he couldn’t reach the surface to fill his lungs with air instead of water. Because he died.

Is this his punishment? For doing something so foolish? For dying? For leaving Nagisa behind without saying goodbye? Is he going to be stuff in the Netherworld forever, stuck in this cloud of nothingness with only brief flashes of the living world to keep him company? Is that what he’ll do? Sit here and occasionally look in on how his parents are. Watch Katsumi’s graduation from university. Watch the Iwatobi Swim Team build itself up from the bottom and shock everyone with how the four of them work together to win the relay without him. And then when he really hates himself, watch Nagisa as he grows up, and finds someone else to hold his hand and kiss his face, watch him grow old and die happy and then maybe in another seventy years Nagisa will pass through the Netherworld and remember Rei as the boy who couldn’t even say goodbye. Is that what he’s meant to do for the rest of his existence? Sit here and slowly wither away?

“What am I supposed to do?” he cries again, whipping his head around to the man. “What am I...please…” He lick his lips and swallows. “Please help me.”

The man sighs, but he smiles, and moves carefully towards Rei until they’re sitting side by side. “You still have some unfinished business. And you can’t move on until that’s taken care of.”

Rei takes a moment, before his breath catches as he realizes what the man means. His chest balloons with a sudden explosion of happiness, before he remembers reality. And then he shakes his head, desperate. “No...no…”

“Why not?”

“Because…” Because of so many reasons. Because what if he gets there and Nagisa won’t listen to him? What if he Rei can’t get the words out? What if Nagisa feels sorry for him, the dead boy who loves him in a way Nagisa can’t reciprocate? “Because he’s going to be mad at me,” Rei mumbles at last.

“Did you do something to deserve it?”

He sighs, deep and lingering. “Okay, yes, but…”

“You’d rather be stuck here forever than go back and tell that boy that you love him?”

“I can’t…” Rei shuts his eyes and shakes his head harder, willing the Matsuoka father to just _understand_. “Leaving once... I couldn’t…”

Leaving once took everything he had. How can he do it again?

“So is that it?” he cries, slamming his hands down to the ground as he feels another tear slip past his defenses. “Go back and tell him I love him? Tell him a proper goodbye? And then zoom back here? Have to leave him all over again? Why? Why do I always have to leave him? Again and again and again…” He reaches one hand up to scrub away the tears that have sprung up, unbidden. “That’s so unfair. It’s so unfair.” He sniffs and shuts his eyes. “Why did I have to die? Why did it have to happen? Maybe that’s how things are meant to be, but _why_?”

A hand, soothing between his shoulderblades. “Maybe that’s not the question to be asking.”

“Then what?” Rei snaps. “What should I be asking?”

The man doesn’t even blink at Rei’s tone of voice. “You said that’s how things are meant to be?”

“Yes, but—!”

“I don’t think that’s true though,” the man goes on, ignoring him. He takes his free hand and waves it through the mist, and there’s Kou, sitting on the train all wrapped up for winter, side by side with Hana. And then suddenly there’s Rin, in Haru’s home chatting with Haru and Makoto. “The way I see it,” the man says as they watch the images of his children. “Is that there is no greater plan. Things are not meant to be. Things happen, and things have consequences. Some of those are good. Some of those are bad. You can’t say that you dying was a good thing just because my son will transfer because of it. Things would have worked out just fine if you hadn’t died. But because you did, things worked out in a different way.”

Rei casts his eyes down, and fiddles with his swimsuit. “So I didn’t have to die for things to turn out like they did. I could’ve...I could’ve been a part of the team, and gotten to know everyone…I didn’t have to die!”

“But you did,” the Matsuoka father says, voice soft and gentle. “Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe it was meant to be. Maybe you would have died some other way a week later if you hadn’t drowned. Maybe not. But the reality is that you died, and the world changed because of it. For better or worse we’ll never be able to say. It’s no use asking why it happened. No use asking why it had to be.”

Rei blinks, and breathes slowly in and out as he fiddles with his swimsuit. How can he think like that? That his death had no meaning at all? Would that mean his life had no meaning either? That everything he has ever said or done adds up to nothing in the end? How can his death have no meaning?

Or maybe ‘meant to be’ and ‘having meaning’ are two completely different things. His death can mean something without being meant to be.

Rei tries to think of anything Kou had ever said about her father.

“You...you drowned too, didn’t you?” he asks, very quietly, and the man nods, tilting his head ever so slightly to the side.

“Yes.”

“And don’t you ever wonder...if it would have been better…”

The Matsuoka father smiles, and reaches a hand out to grip Rei’s shoulder, thumb stroking over his skin. “Do I regret taking my boat out and getting caught in that storm? Of course. But can I really regret any of my choices leading up to that? I wouldn’t have been out at sea if I hadn’t been a fisherman.” He shrugs his shoulders, easy and accepting. “I wouldn’t have been a fisherman if I hadn’t had a family to support. Would I trade in my family for the chance to live? Choose not to marry, to miss out on my children? Would it have been worth it, to live a longer life without them? For Rin and Kou not even being born?” He shakes his head again, but it still doesn’t steal away his smile. “Maybe I can regret that a storm stole my life away, but I can’t regret the life that led up to it. Never.”

Rei remembers what he’d told Nagisa, up in those snow-covered hills. That he didn’t regret joining the swim team. He can regret that he died, he can regret every single possibility of what they might have been, but he can’t ever regret that the two of them met.

Give him back his life a hundred times over, and he’ll choose the same way, every single time. There’s no use in screaming about how unfair it is, or wishing for endless what-ifs that will never be possible.

He’d dead, and nothing will ever change that. But what does it do, to regret the life he got to live?

He shuts his eyes, and breathes in deep, holds it, and then breathes out slowly. Does it once more. One last time.

So he’s being pulled back once again? To Nagisa. Again and again and again. And again and again and again he has to leave. Every single time.

But maybe the goodbyes are always worth it. A hundred times, a thousand times over. The chance to meet. The chance to fall in love.

Yes, if only he was still alive. Things would go so differently. But he isn’t alive, and this is how things have to go.

He turns to the Matsuoka father with a pleading expression. “When you really, really, really, _really_ screw up, how do you apologize?”

“Grovel,” the man replies with a soft smile.

“And how do you...how do you…” This one is more embarrassing, but he has no one else to ask. And besides, now that he knows where to look for it, he sees Kou’s smile upon this man’s lips. Sees where Rin inherited the kindness in his eyes. He takes another deep breath. “The love...thing. How do you…?”

The kind eyes go wide. “Oh. Um...I think that’s a more personal matter. You don’t want my advice on that. The first time I told my wife I loved her she broke up with me. We got back together but…”

It’s enough to get Rei to smile. “She broke up with you?”

“On the spot. It was a bit sudden and we were young…”

Rei laughs. Genuinely, this time. Laughs, and wipes the remnants of tears away. “Alright. I’ll...make it up as I go along, I suppose.”

The Matsuoka father smiles at him again and reaches out to squeeze his knee. “Just tell the truth. It’s the best you can do, believe me.”

Rei nods. “Okay.”  He breathes out a slow stream of air. “Okay.” He tries to breathe out again, but just groans. “I think I need to think about what to say for a little while.”

“A good plan,” the man says with a nod, “Just remember time here passes a little differently, so it might be best to not take too long…”

“Oh Gods,” Rei mutters, rubbing at his temples. He’d forgotten about that for a while. “Right...the truth…”

_I love you. I shouldn’t love you but I do and I’m so sorry. I didn’t keep my promise and I just hope you don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me. Please don’t forget me after I’m gone._

He shuts his eyes and focuses, but it takes barely any effort. Knowing his longing to be back at Nagisa’s side is actually his pull back to the living world makes everything so easy. He’s going to be pulled right back to where he belongs, where he’s connected to and always will be.

He’s going to see Nagisa again. The very thought drives everything else from his mind. He’s going to see Nagisa again, no matter how much it hurts to have to leave again in the end. He’ll be right where he’s supposed to be, one last time.

He’ll apologize. He’ll grovel. He’ll cry, probably, because Nagisa is always able to make him cry, but he’ll still be seeing Nagisa again, talking to him, and maybe the reason he couldn’t say goodbye is because it would have felt so final.

This time, it’s easy. He just thinks of Nagisa’s eyes, his smile, the way he scrunches up his body when he sleeps and talks too loud indoors and mismatches his socks and always crumples his homework in the bottom of his bag and simply everything and anything he is.

He can feel the tug of the living world already, knows that when he simply lets go, he’ll be back there in an instant.

He turns to Rin and Kou’s father, who sits there smiling gently at him. Rei smiles back. “Goodbye, Matsuoka-san,” he says, “And thank you.”

He lets go.

**And the next thing he sees is snow.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think a lot of people guessed that it was going to be Rin and Kou's dad but I couldn't think of anyone better to stick around to watch over his kids and help Rei out a bit~  
> Comments, kudos and recs are always so appreciated! (And the song suggestions in my inbox...) Thank you for reading! Next update will be next Monday!  
> Three chapters left!


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the response on the last chapter! I love reading your reviews and getting messages on tumblr—it always makes me 10x more motivated!  
> This is officially my jump-the-shark chapter (in a fic about teenage ghosts in swimsuits...) but I think it'll leave most everyone pretty happy so maybe that's okay ~

His breath blooms in front of him like a rose in the cold air before slowly fading away in the snow that has begun to fall around him in tiny little flakes. It’ll be getting dark soon. Nagisa sighs and fiddles with the buttons on his coat, doing them all up and undoing them all over again. He’s beginning to lose feeling in the very tips of his fingers even with mittens on so he sticks his hands deep in his pockets as he scuffs a shoe over a patch of ice and continues down the sidewalk.

He’d known it was coming, of course. The whole time, Rei had talked about finding closure and returning to the Netherworld. So Nagisa had known, full well, even with as hard as he’d tried to deny it, so there’s no excuse for how he feels now but…

...but for a while he’d convinced himself that maybe things could stay the same. That Rei could remain with him and be his personal ghost for months more, _years_ more even. Forever perhaps. Nothing would have to change. Nagisa could hold his books open for Rei to read and have conversations through always pretending to be talking on his phone. It wouldn’t be conventional, but it would have been fine. They would have made it fine. Because when Rei was with him, Nagisa could believe it was possible. That it could have worked. _They_ could have worked.

And then reality called and Rei left him behind. Again.

When Rei had first come back, his parents had worried about him spending too much time in his room. And for the first few days after Rei disappeared, it had been like that all over again. But now, he’s barely in the house. He can’t stand to be in his bedroom any longer and see the memory of Rei standing over by the desk or leaning over the dresser. Can’t stand to sleep in a bed when he’s supposed to open his eyes in the morning to find Rei already smiling at him. He can’t do it. Every night he’s home in his room he grabs all his blankets off the bed and sleeps on the floor, muffling sobs into his pillow.

He especially can’t stand those stupid red glasses, which is why—of course—he spent so much time those first few days holding them in gentle hands, running his fingers along the rims and feeling like his entire chest has been scooped out. No, he can’t stand those stupid red glasses that Rei had apparently had time to break, but no time to tell Nagisa goodbye.

One of the lenses had cracked one day when Nagisa ran his thumb over it and that had been it. He couldn’t stay there anymore, trapped in his room surrounded by the books Rei had read and the broken things he’d left behind. He’d bundled up in his coat and boots and run out into the snow, trying so hard not to automatically wait as he walks for the footsteps that should be right behind his own.

His wandering had led him to Makoto’s house. Makoto might have been bewildered by Nagisa’s request to hang-out, but let him inside nevertheless. He chased after Nagisa all the way to his room—asking if something is wrong, if he should call someone, if everything is alright at home—but Nagisa just deflected the questions with ease, directing the conversation to Rin’s transfer, which Makoto fretted about for at least half an hour before settling back down and forgetting the barrage of questions that had gone unanswered. Nagisa ran home that night just as the sun was setting, ate dinner, bothered Chiasa for a bit, and slept on the floor of his room, just to run off to Makoto’s house early the next morning. And the next. He didn’t do much once there. Mostly sat in the corner of Makoto’s room and let Makoto get down to his schoolwork. Nagisa’s finished his own by now. Rei made him do it all while he was sick with his cold. Every once in a while Makoto tried to sneak a glance at him, brow furrowed with concern, but Nagisa just smiled and pretended to be engrossed in the random magazines he’d grabbed off Makoto’s desk which turned out to be about cooking. Just...a truckload of cooking magazines. It was really boring and didn't do much to keep his mind off Rei. But it was alright. Until Makoto’s younger siblings burst in on the third day and Nagisa just didn’t have the energy to be the excitable, happy version of himself they’d known before. He can’t be that person right now, can’t even pretend. So he’d made his excuses and run for it. Haru’s house was the next place his feet took him, and Haru didn’t bother with any questions at all. Just let Nagisa in and let him help prepare lunch.

It was peaceful in Haru’s home, but certain rooms had to be avoided, or else he’d end up thinking about Rei again. Nagisa found a quiet corner and napped, because his nights on the floor have been far from restful, and when Haru asked him if he’d like to stay the night, Nagisa accepted gratefully. He called his parents and told them he was with Haru and wouldn’t be coming home. They must have been relieved he was spending time with his friends as opposed to closing himself up in his bedroom because they didn’t question it at all. He slept in the same room as Haru, and could almost pretend that it was Rei he could hear breathing. But when he woke up halfway through the night and Rei wasn’t there, Haru’s breathing just made him want to cry. So he did, cupping his hands over his mouth to prevent waking Haru up. He’s cried so much his body should just be a dry husk by now, but somehow he was still there the next morning. He’s pretty sure Haru had heard him crying though, from the way Haru watched him while they made breakfast. But he didn’t say anything, and Nagisa was extremely thankful. It’s not like it’s something he can explain to anyone anyways. Haru taught him at least fifty billion ways to prepare mackerel and Nagisa is beginning to understand why Makoto has the desperate need to learn to cook something other than fish. He slept over another night, since Haru didn’t bother putting his bedroll away, and while his mom sounded concerned this time when he called her, she spoke with Haru on the phone for a moment and then it’s fine. Haru might be quiet, but he’s the sort of person who seems just automatically mature and trustworthy. It probably comes from living alone. Nagisa wonders if Haru ever gets lonely, or if that’s why Makoto is always coming over. Maybe now they’re getting along again Rin can start coming over as well and Haru won’t ever have to be lonely.

He was napping in a corner when Makoto actually did come over and then the peace was destroyed because then both Makoto _and_ Haru knew he’d been avoiding home for close to a week and there was no escaping their questioning save actual escaping. Which he did. Out the door, zip zip, before they could stop him.

He'd considered sitting on the train to take up a few hours, but the moment he neared the station he could tell being alone on a train will feel the same as being alone in his room and at least when he cries in his room no one can see. So he went home early and tried to smile as bright as he could but he knows everyone is beginning to see straight through him. He wonders if they think he’s relapsing into mourning Rei again.

Well, they’re not wrong.

Ren was packing up to go back to her own apartment, so he helped with that and then watched movies with her on her laptop—no ghost movies, just funny ones. She’d let him sleep in her room so they could try to fit a fourth movie in before falling asleep. He’s been her baby brother long enough she just grabbed him and stuck him in her bed, and it was almost like when he was little and would run to her room during thunderstorms, the two of them safe beneath the covers and her body so warm next to his. She left the next morning, and he wishes she could have stayed. Let him steal her warmth for a little while longer.

But he couldn’t ask her such a selfish thing, so sucked it up and took the train to the Matsuoka household. Kou let him inside immediately and hustled him up to her room. He told her the truth. Well, not the whole truth of course. Just that he’s had his heart broken by the boy that he loved and that earned him three solid days of solace hiding in her bedroom, filled with bad television dramas and ice cream and Kou actually encouraging him to cry. She pet his hair as he did and told him that someday someone will love him back so much he won’t even remember how it felt to hurt like this and he doubts that but didn’t argue. All he could think is how lucky he is to have met Kou. He’s never letting her out of his life, ever. And maybe someday he’ll be able to repay her and be her rock when she needs him.

So for those few days things were almost good. They laughed at how bad the television dramas were and kept the blinds closed so they couldn't see the snow outside and buried themselves in blankets and then Rin came in and ruined everything by saying Makoto and Haru had called all worried and Nagisa had better explain whatever the hell is up with him (And since when did he sign up to get three extra dads instead of teammates?) and Nagisa felt so trapped and sick and desperate and even while Kou was telling her brother to leave him alone, Nagisa just grabbed his stuff and ran for it. Straight out the door with his coat undone and scarf slung around his neck.

Which is how he’s ended up here, on this lonely street with the snow falling down around him, obscuring his footsteps behind him as he goes. He’d wandered the town for a bit to avoid using the train, seeking someplace where he isn’t plagued by memories. Or perhaps not, since he always seemed to end up places where it hurts the most. Down by the peer. At the cafe. On the bench outside the aquarium. His mind screams for a moment of mercy to not have to remember while his feet seem intent on never letting him forget.

He’s not even sure how he’s supposed to feel anymore. When Rei had died, he’d felt empty. Empty and guilty and shattered.

But Rei hadn’t made the choice back then. He’d died, and even if it wasn’t anybody’s fault, Rei hadn’t been offered a choice on whether he felt like dying or not.

This time, Rei must have known when he was leaving. He must have, otherwise how would he have known to break the glasses in time? So Rei chose to leave Nagisa behind once more and he couldn’t even be bothered to keep his promise. That promise he’d swore he’d keep.

Over the past six months, Nagisa had been sure they’d grown closer. Cared about each other. Even if Rei didn’t grow to love Nagisa back, did he not even matter enough for Rei to say goodbye?

And now there’s too many words between them he’ll never have the chance to say.

Maybe that’s how he feels. He feels...unfinished. Like something important was supposed to happen and he missed it completely and now he’s off the rails and unraveling and has no idea where he’s going. The story didn’t go the way he thought it would so now he’s rambling on with no end in sight because he can’t think of any ending at all, nothing to wrap up the tale of the boy and his ghost that doesn’t break him completely. He’s unfinished. And always—always—wishing for Rei to appear around the next corner.

He kicks at the snow along the sidewalk and sighs as he starts to twist a hand in a loose string of his scarf. The scarf Rei picked out, because apparently he really really doesn’t want to forget as much as he thinks he does. As he walks, the snowflakes begin to stick to his eyelashes, melt upon his lips. He pulls the scarf a little tighter so snow won’t go down his back. He doesn’t want to go home, not yet. His parents think he’s at Kou’s house still, so it’s alright if he’s late. Maybe in a few days Rin and Haru and Makoto can just sort of forget about him and let him return to Kou’s room. She’s the only person he feels even vaguely connected to right now, the only one he could tell even a partial truth to. His one link that’s holding him down, keeping him from drifting away completely. He wonders if someday when his feet are touching ground again he’ll sit Kou down and tell her a proper ghost story. Maybe she’ll believe him. Maybe not.

He glances up at the sky, at the darkness creeping across the clouds. Maybe if he just stays here he can get buried in snow and never have to move again. He stands there on the sidewalk, head tilted up, and closes his eyes. Breathes in frigid air and lets it back out in a puff of white. Does it again.

At what point, he wonders, will he start to wonder if it was a delusion? Some coping method to deal with Rei’s death that went on for months and months. At what point does he convince himself that all those nights were merely the result of desperation, and that the crushed glasses mean nothing? He could have easily broken them himself. It’s a more reasonable explanation than a ghost, after all. Except there’s no way he would have broken something so important for him to remember Rei by. Never. So, for the rest of his life is he going to go on with the memory of a ghost haunting him more effectively than that ghost ever did? Will he never fall into the relief of being able to convince himself it was all make-believe? Because that’s what he wants, so badly. He wants to be able to act like it was all fake. He wants to be able to forget it altogether. Take away his nights safe by Rei’s side, take away their train rides and flipping pages and broken pencils and sitting across from each other at cafe tables and take away Christmas shopping and scarves and standing at the penguin exhibit and take away the way Rei’s eyes scrunched up when he smiled that special smile he reserved just for Nagisa and take away how much Nagisa had ached to touch him and take it away, please _just take it away_ so he doesn’t have to live with these memories anymore.

Please take away that he fell in love with the ghost of a boy who didn’t care enough to even say goodbye.

He tilts his head back forward with a sigh and tugs his scarf a little tighter as the wind picks up. The snow gets heavier and heavier underneath his boots as he walks, straight past the school. He stops and stares at the main entrance numbly. Classes will be starting again soon. He’s not sure if that will help or make everything worse. On one hand, he’ll be kept busy during the day. But memories of Rei are in all the hallways, on the rooftop, in the classrooms, in the club room and the pool. There’ll be no one to take the train with to school and back. No one to help him with his schoolwork.

Maybe he really should set up a study group with Kou because he’s not sure he’ll be able to take all that loneliness and live with it.

His feet lead him around the school in a loop as the wind sends his scarf billowing behind him and the snow pelts his face. He can feel himself beginning to shiver, but he still doesn’t want to go home yet. He ducks into the trees that line the area around the pool and slides down the slope until the pool, all covered for winter, comes into view through the chainlink fence. The wind can’t reach him as badly down here, and it was probably inevitable his feet would take him here again. Just another painful reminder.

The pool, where Rei first came back to him. Nagisa is pretty sure he knows the exact spot where he was lying when he first heard Rei’s footsteps on the cement. How he’d been watching the stars and dangling his feet in the water.

The bushes that surround the pool fence are just lumps of white now, the trees barren and quickly collecting snow upon their branches. He wanders among them until he can’t see the street at all. He ducks beneath a tree as a gust of wind snakes its way after him and the snow blows into his face, making his eyes smart. But he’s hidden now from the rest of the world, invisible from the sidewalk. He really could just sit here and let the snow swallow him up. Maybe he could hibernate. Fall asleep for a thousand years until he stops hurting and can get on with his life.

All he wants is to disappear.

Except he can’t. Because Rei, damn him, had taught him something. Had shown him something. That no matter how alone he felt in those weeks and months following Rei’s death, he’d never been the only one hurting. And right now, all he’s doing is worrying those who care about him. He’s done too much of that already. He has to stop being so selfish and find a way to climb back out of this, except this time he won’t have Rei’s help.

But maybe that’s okay. He’s stronger now, knows what pain is and that it can be ridden out, that it won’t hurt forever, not as badly. He can do it. If it’s for the sake of his family and friends, he can do it. He won’t have Rei’s help ever again. He needs to learn how to cope without it.

He needs to go home. He needs to go home and apologize to his parents. And text Haru and Makoto and Rin and apologize to them. And then a special thank you text to Kou for being the best friend ever, and then he really can ask her about setting up a study group. Maybe he should get his dad’s or Chiasa’s help to bake something nice to take over to the Matsuoka house, in some attempt of making up for all the grief ice cream he consumed.  

He needs to put Rei behind him for good. After all, it’s what Rei decided to do with him.

Nagisa nods decisively, and does up the top button of his coat. Yes, go home and put Rei behind him. And after a while, maybe it won’t hurt so much to remember him. Maybe he’ll be able to think of the good things and smile one day. It’s all he can do for himself. Move past this the best he can while hurting the ones he loves the least he can and leave Rei in the past where he belongs. It’s what he’s going to have to do. Leave Rei behind him. Far behind him.

And then a voice from right behind him. “Nagisa.”

He nearly has a coronary. And then falls over with a yelp into a pile of snow. He tries to excavate himself, sputtering and cursing to himself and getting snow all down his shirt as his heartbeat starts to settle down. All he can see is white. He pushes himself upright, feeling the snow hanging in his hair, melting down his face and into his clothing, clinging to all the little folds of his coat and scarf and pants. He waves his scarf to rid it of most of the snow and uses it to wipe his face, smearing the melted snowflakes across his skin. He blinks the snow from his eyes, stares down at the churned up pile of snow where he’s now stuck, and then lets his gaze wander over to the pair of bare legs sticking straight up through the snow without disturbing it in the least.

He doesn’t need to see anything else. He takes a deep breath, and lifts his head so he can meet Rei’s gaze. And loses that breath all at once.

Rei doesn’t look any different. Still the same swimsuit, the same goggles. The only thing that’s different is that now his glasses are perched on his nose. A frame for the same familiar heartbreaking eyes Rei uses to look at him, that drive all the air from his lungs at once.

It’s a frozen moment, as he looks up at Rei and Rei looks back at him, and there could be nothing in the world but the two of them and he wouldn’t even notice. Like the whole world has disappeared already, and it’s just them, here in the snow as the dusk creeps across a cloud-filled sky.

Rei doesn’t say anything else. Just stares. Looking as breathless and bewildered as Nagisa feels, and Nagisa knows Rei is waiting for him to say something, say anything. Say anything to break this awful silence surrounding them. And there are a lot of first words that jump to mind. Accusations. Furious curses. But none of those would capture how he feels more than the words that leap onto his tongue and drop into the silence, dead and monotone. “You didn’t say goodbye,” he says.

“I know,” Rei replies with a husky voice, arms hanging in defeat down by his sides.

There doesn’t seem to be much else to say.

“The ghost glasses worked?” Nagisa asks after a moment of quiet, and Rei nods.

Silence again. The snowflakes fall bigger and bigger and bigger, until Rei is even more difficult to see, with his not-quite-there-edness that’s always a reminder he’s no longer of this world. But he’s there. He’s really there.

Unless Nagisa is just imagining it. Imagining everything.

“Aren’t you cold?” Rei asks after another minute. Nagisa shrugs. Rei scrunches his face up a little like he does when he’s upset but choosing to not say anything. Nagisa just stares up at him, trying to think of how he should be reacting. Should he be shouting and furious, cold and aloof? Overjoyed to have the chance to see Rei before him, just one last time? “Nagisa, you’re shivering,” Rei says, and Nagisa’s voice comes out a croak.

“Are you really here?”

Rei pauses, and then after another long moment stretched between them, he nods. “I’m here. I’m really here.”

Nagisa sits up a little straighter in the snow and tries to stop shivering as the snow slips down the back of his coat. But this isn’t possible. Rei went back to the Netherworld. He can’t be here. He can’t be.

“Why are you here?” he asks, lip already beginning to shake, making his voice wobble. If this is a trick, it’s the cruelest trick anyone could ever play. “Why...why did you come back?”

Rei’s eyes go all heartbreaking again and he starts forward but Nagisa backpedals through the snow furiously until he stumbles to his feet, mittened hands fumbling and finding the chainlink fence for support. “Why?” he asks again, feeling the heat of tears rising to his eyes. “Why are you here?”

Rei takes a slow step forward and Nagisa turns his face into the fence so he doesn’t have to look at that familiar expression. So he doesn’t have to see the way Rei looks at him.

“B-because…” Rei starts in a faltering voice, “There’s something I…” He trails off, and Nagisa sniffs, bringing his hand up quickly to wipe away the tear that tries to slide down his cheek. His fingers are gradually getting colder and colder even with the mittens and he wants to let go of the freezing metal of the fence, but his knees won’t support him without some help. He peeks out as Rei takes another step towards him, holding one arm across his chest the way he does. “There’s something I need to tell you.”

“Goodbye,” Nagisa blurts out, with another sniff, training his eyes on the snow where Rei stands. “Goodbye. You promised.” He gives up. He’s going to cry. “Y-you promised you’d say goodbye.” His voice breaks along the words like glass.

“I did. I did. I did, I did, I did,” Rei babbles, taking another step. “But that’s not...that’s not...that’s not what I have to say. I mean, it is, but it’s not why I’m back here. But I’m sorry. I’m so sorry for not keeping my promise and Nagisa... _please look at me_ …”

Like it hurts him, to not have Nagisa’s eyes on him. How can he act like that when he was the one who left? Who made sure Nagisa couldn’t see him at all? Nagisa raises his head with a jerk, tears dripping from his chin. “Do you how it felt?” he stammers out, trying to force anger into the words but failing. He just sounds desperate instead as the tears keep falling, as his voice goes soft and scratchy. “Waking up and you weren’t there? I ran...I ran everywhere and you—and you—and you weren’t anywhere! I couldn’t find you anywhere! You...you left me, Rei-chan...how could you…?” He stares into Rei’s eyes and slowly shakes his head. “Why? Why can you hurt me more than anyone else?”

“Nagisa...I’m so sorry…” Rei rasps, taking another step, and then another, so he falls into the shadow of the trees, growing longer as the night nears. Nagisa shrinks into the fence and Rei stops short, obscured by the darkness. If they both reached out, they could stand fingertip to fingertip but Nagisa shakes his head again and hides his face in his scarf. He’s so cold, but it doesn’t matter. Let him freeze here. He doesn’t care. “I’m sorry,” Rei says again.

“No!” he yells, making Rei startle back. “No, no, you can’t fix it like that! How could you...how could...you promised!” He lifts his face once more so he can shout properly, voice muffled by the snow falling around and surrounding them, by the trees and bushes that hide them from the world. “How could you leave me behind? _Again?_ How could you? I...I...I thought you cared…enough about me to at least…” He sniffs and wipes at his face with his glove. “I thought that you…”

“Nagisa, I…”

“No!” He squeezes his eyes shut and balls his fists. “I—I hate you Rei-chan! I hate you, I hate you, I hate…” The words are bitter in his mouth. He grabs onto the fence with both hands as his legs threaten to let out beneath him. He coughs out a sob, and presses his face against the chainlink to try to keep any more sobs from escaping, gritting his teeth hard. How is that Rei can tear him apart so easily, every time?

Why did he have to fall in love?

Why did he have to fall in love with a ghost who would leave him behind without even a goodbye?

“Why?” he whispers. “Why didn’t you say goodbye?”

Rei’s footsteps, of course, don’t make any sound in the snow, but Nagisa can hear the sound of his labored breathing, getting just a little bit louder as Rei approaches him, ever so slowly.

“Because,” Rei whispers, and then pauses, and they both wait in the silence for the words to come out. Nagisa presses himself harder against the fence, feels it bend beneath his weight, feel the snow shift beneath his boots. What sort of answer can Rei give? What sort of justification can he have for breaking Nagisa’s heart like that, even if he didn’t realize just what he was breaking?

“Because I was afraid of the way you’d look at me.”

Nagisa uncovers his face and stares up at Rei with mouth slightly agape, and Rei laughs a little ruefully and reaches one hand beneath his glasses to push away the tears gathering on his bottom lashes. “Yeah, just like that. That look.”

“It’s not a look,” Nagisa grumbles, and Rei shrugs helplessly.

“It doesn’t matter. Any way you look at me, it doesn’t matter.” He shakes his head and his arms flop back to his sides, palms open and helplessly offering. “I couldn’t take it. I couldn’t...I didn’t…” Rei shuts his eyes and pushes one hand over his eyes, knocking his glasses up into his hair. “I just couldn’t watch your face when I told you I was leaving. I didn’t want to see…” He sniffs, loud and unrefined. “...how you’d look at me. I couldn’t...I’m sorry…”

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa whispers, body reacting without his permission and reaching one shaking hand out in Rei’s direction.

Rei lowers his hand and stares at him for a moment, eyes gone pink, and then his entire face collapses, tears dripping from the corners of his eyes, lip trembling and whole body trembling.

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa whispers again, and stretches his arm out further. If only Rei would reach out, press their fingertips together once more, just how they’re supposed to be...

Which is when Rei raises his face and wipes at his nose before lifting his shoulders in a helpless shrug. “I love you.”

The words drop into the space between them, heavy like the snow. Nagisa’s mouth falls open, and he blinks several times before staring at Rei—crying, shaking Rei—wondering if he’d heard wrong.

“What?” he manages to squeak out.

Rei chuckles a little and wipes at his eyes again. “I said that I love you, Nagisa. I am completely besotted and very…” He takes a deep breath. “...very much in love with you.”

It’s like his whole body has turned into stone, completely immobile, and Nagisa can feel the words getting stuck in his throat on the way up. Rei must take his quiet as something else, and fiddles with his glasses, clearing his throat and wiping a surreptitious finger beneath one eye to flick away a stray tear. He babbles, voice tripping and breaking. “I know that...I know that you don’t feel the same way. I know that. You don’t have to feel obligated…or...or guilty about anything. You can hate me if you want to. It’s probably justified.” His arms cross across his chest once more, defensive, and where he couldn’t take his eyes off Nagisa before, now he looks anywhere but. “It’s just that when I left you I created new unfinished business for myself because I...because of my feelings, and I wouldn’t have been able to get into the afterlife without telling you that so...here I am. That’s why I’m here.” He takes a step backwards, away from Nagisa’s hand, still frozen as it reaches out for Rei’s touch in return. “I...um...I’m sorry, Nagisa, for all the trouble I’ve caused you and I...I can say goodbye to you this time so I…if I do that then the Netherworld will pull me back and you’ll never have to see me again. I won’t bother you anymore.”

No, no. No, Rei can’t leave again. He can’t. He can’t just pop back into Nagisa’s life for five minutes, say those words, and then leave again. Not like this. Not like this. He has to stop Rei from leaving. But the words just won’t come, his body won’t move. His breath is stopped and his vision is blurry with tears and Rei can’t do this, can’t just leave him again like this, no, _no_ …

Rei squares his shoulders and finally looks Nagisa straight in the eye. He smiles, a sad little smile. “So...I guess this is my farewell.” He tilts his head to one side, just slightly, and reaches out, almost brushing their fingers together, but pulling back at the last second. He sniffs, and laughs, and shakes his head. “Well, Nagisa, goodb—”

“I love you back!” Nagisa shouts, words bursting out of his mouth all at once. He shuts his eyes tight as the confession resounds in his own ears, echoes loud in the sudden silence. His one hand is still gripping the fence and the other reaching out in Rei’s direction. He pulls that hand back in like he’s been burnt to fiddle nervously with his scarf, wrapping it around and around his fingers and unwinding all over again. Anything he can say, anything now, to keep Rei from leaving, even if he can’t gather the courage to look at Rei as he bares his heart. His words come out muddled as he shakes his head desperately and twirls his scarf around and around and around. “I love you too, Rei-chan, so please don’t go! Please don’t go, I love…” He opens his eyes and yep, there go the tears again, making his vision all blurry and dropping heavy to the snow below him. “I love you, I love you, I love you and I know I shouldn’t but I do!”

“Y-you…” Rei stammers, and Nagisa wipes at his eyes and raises his head to see Rei looking like he was just hit by a train. “You do?” And he’s got those heartbreaking eyes again that Nagisa loves just as much as he loves everything else, and he needs to hold even tighter to the fence to keep from collapsing. There’s no taking his words back now and he doesn’t want to, not with Rei staring at him like that. Like a ‘just kidding’ would be all it takes to rip everything out of him at once. Because he loves Rei, no matter how much he’s hurting—he does, he does, he does, sure as his heart beating so rapidly inside his chest. He loves Rei.

“With everything,” Nagisa whispers, a slight smile touching his lips.

Rei’s chest is heaving, his hair all frazzled and glasses askew from the hand he’s got wiping at his eyes. “I-I-I…” He takes a deep breath, and presses his hand to his forehead as he looks skyward. The sky must not supply any answers because after a moment Rei lowers his face once more to admit in a slightly breathy voice, “I really didn’t plan this conversation beyond the very first part.”

That admission, more than anything else, is what eases the tension around them, and suddenly Nagisa can’t remember why he thought it was so important to be angry at Rei for leaving, when what really matters is that Rei came back for him. Again. Nagisa laughs softly as his muscles relax a bit and he pushes himself off the fence, using his scarf to mop up his face. “It’s a little complicated, isn’t it?”

“You make everything complicated,” Rei replies, but it’s with such a fond voice Nagisa decides it must be meant as a compliment.

Nagisa nibbles at his lower lip and goes back to fiddling with his scarf. He catches Rei’s eyes once, but Rei is still looking at him with those eyes of his so he casts his gaze around to the trees, to the fence, to his own feet. “So...so what now?” What do you do when a boy loves you, and he loves you back, but there’s an irreversible barrier keeping you apart? No matter how much he loves Rei, no matter how strong that truth is, there’s nothing more they can do.

But Rei loves him. The knowledge is slowly seeping into his system, an unsteady but warm flame in his belly. Through some miracle, Rei loves him. Through some miracle Rei loves him and was able to come back to him to tell him that, but what else can they do? If this was normal, if they’d had the chance, this confession could have come after months of dates and handholding and maybe even shy kisses that Nagisa aches to feel. This confession could have come like it does for most normal relationships, a confession that speaks of a future. Not like this. Not with this air of finality, the reality that Rei will always have to leave again hanging over their heads. Nagisa should be able to feel happy, but is this all they have? Exchanging words and then parting forever, connected through a love that’s just a tangle of maybes and what ifs?

What do they do now?

“I…” Rei starts, and then closes his eyes and breathes in deeply. Lets it out. Does it again. Calming himself. Thinking clearly. That’s what Rei is good at, right? Rei opens his eyes once more and stares straight at Nagisa, unblinking, and this time Nagisa gets caught right up in his gaze, breath catching.

Rei’s eyes have always spoken so much, especially when Rei wasn’t able to speak those words himself. And the way he looks at Nagisa...well, now Nagisa is starting to realize the reason those are his heartbreaking eyes is because in those eyes he is reflected as something special and beautiful and worth coming back for. He is something so much more than he believes he is, and more than anything—more than anything—in those eyes he is _loved_.

“Rei-chan…” he whispers, letting go of the fence with one hand and reaching out once more, waiting for Rei to stretch out his fingers and let them brush together once more, even if it’s just an imitation of a touch. Let him feel the chill of Rei’s immaterial body just once more. But Rei doesn’t reach out in return. He just keeps staring at Nagisa and shakes his head very slowly from side to side.

“I think I do know what’s supposed to happen after this,” Rei says softly, “But I’m going to look completely ridiculous if it doesn’t work.”

Nagisa frowns. “Rei-chan, wha—?”

But Rei just shuts his eyes, voice a hushed rasp that Nagisa can barely hear. “Let me break the rules for this.” He’s not speaking to Nagisa. He’s not speaking to anyone at all. “Please, let me break the rules for this, if only this, please, _please_.” A prayer. A prayer Nagisa doesn’t understand right away.

“Rei-cha—”

“Belief. That’s what you said?”

“What?”

“Belief.” Rei says, eyes flying open as he straightens his shoulders and balls his hands with what must be resolve. “Belief and wanting it hard enough.”

“Rei-chan, what are you—?”

But Rei’s voice drowns his out, breathy and desperate and twisting tight around Nagisa’s heart and squeezing. “Nagisa, I have never believed in _anything_ more than you or wanted _anything_ more than this in my entire existence.” He staggers forward towards Nagisa at the last few words and that’s when Nagisa finally understands, shrinks back against the fence with arms falling useless to his sides as he shakes his head frantically. No, not another what if. There are only so many what ifs he can live with and he won’t be able to live with this one.  

“Rei-chan, that won’t work, it won’t wo—!”

And then hands—solid hands—are cupping Nagisa’s face, tilting his head up and cold lips are pressed against his own.

Nagisa gasps at the feel, and Rei takes the opportunity to kiss him deeper, hands stroking down Nagisa’s face to caress his jawline, pressing them both back into the fence and making the chainlink creak in protest. It’s clumsy and awkward, both of them shaking and Rei’s glasses dig into Nagisa’s cheeks before Rei pulls back, breathing hard. His fingers linger at Nagisa’s face, so cold, so cold, but real. Truly touching him.

Nagisa can’t think of a single thing to say and just stares up at Rei, who’s quickly going pink at the cheeks, obvious even in the fading light. He tries to draw his hands away but Nagisa snaps his own hands up to keep Rei’s trapped where they are upon his cheeks and presses hard as if to staple Rei’s hands there. Rei jumps a little in surprise, but doesn’t try to remove his hands while Nagisa tugs his gloves off one by one and stores them in his pockets as quick as he can. He returns his bare hands to where Rei’s lie upon his face, twining their fingers together just like they had so many times, except this time their fingers fumble and bump against each other as they weave together into a messy hold. Just like Nagisa had imagined and wished for so many times. “How...how are you…?” Nagisa asks in quiet amazement, and Rei shakes his head slowly, blinking away tears and laughing a little with a shaky, relieved sort of laugh as he answers.

“You’re the one who’s supposed to come up with all the theories.”

“Mmm,” Nagisa hums, and grips Rei’s fingers a little tighter. He doesn’t want to bother coming up with ghostly theories, not right now. It’s like all the hurt inside him has been sucked out, that tiny little flame in his stomach blooming into a great balloon of happiness inside his chest. His lips tingle with the chill, and he wants to cry just from the feel of Rei’s fingertips upon his skin. Impossible. This is impossible. But with Rei the impossible can happen, again and again and again and in this moment, everything is somehow okay. “I have idea then,” he says in a rough whisper, pushing himself upward and forward, “How about you kiss me again?”

Rei’s eyes go wide, and then he groans low in his throat before those lips are on Nagisa’s again. This time, they manage to get it a little more right, Rei sucking at Nagisa’s bottom lip while Nagisa keeps pressing his hands against where Rei’s are clutching his jaw, refusing to let go, fingers playing with his fingers, feeling the valleys between each knuckle and turn of each joint. Their noses bump together when Rei starts to pull back but Nagisa follows him, standing up on his tiptoes to prolong the kiss as long as he can before he has to drop back down with a crunch into the snow. He still has a grip on Rei’s hands though, and tugs him back down to Nagisa’s level as Rei laughs. Nagisa giggles in return before pushing off the fence and pressing their mouths together once more. “Don’t ever stop,” Nagisa whispers in the small spaces between each soft and gentle kiss. “Don’t stop. Don’t stop. I love you Rei-chan, I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you…”

Rei brushes his thumbs across Nagisa’s cheeks, wiping away the tears and snowflakes that have settled there. “I love you too. I love you. I love you so much it shouldn’t even be possible.”

Nagisa smiles into the kiss. “Rei-chan, you’re such a sap.”

“You make me sappy,” Rei replies, and Nagisa giggles again. He feels weak in the knees, the feel of Rei’s hands on his face almost to blame as much as the kisses Rei presses against his mouth, over and over and over.

“I didn’t really imagine you as a very good kisser,” he admits when they pull apart, and Rei laughs, turning his head away and going a little red at the cheeks again.

“Well, some of your ghost movies were very instructive.”

Nagisa hums, and shuts his eyes, just focusing on the feel of Rei’s hands beneath his own. “I didn’t think I’d ever get to touch you again,” he whispers, and Rei leans forward to press a kiss to his forehead.

“Me neither.” And then Rei leans back away and brings back his fussy voice. “It’s cold out, Nagisa. You should be inside.”

Nagisa hums again, tilting his head closer into Rei’s right hand. “But I want to stay here forever and ever and ever and I want you to keep kissing me forever and ever and ever and ever. I want you to kiss me until I forget my own name...” He tilts his head up, opens his eyes, and smiles, and watches whatever little resistance Rei had fall away in an instant.

Rei’s touch is so gentle and careful upon Nagisa’s face, and his lips so cold but soft as he kisses Nagisa’s forehead again. “You.” A kiss to the tip of his frozen red nose, and Nagisa wrinkles his nose and laughs a little. “Are.” A kiss to one cheek. “Hazuki.” And to the other. “Nagisa.” A kiss to the lips, short and sweet and Nagisa opens his mouth just slightly, losing his smile and inhaling sharply instead when Rei pulls back so there’s a finger's width of space between them. “And I...” Another kiss, deeper this time, Rei taking his time exploring just what his lips and tongue can do, which, as it turns out, is turn Nagisa completely into jelly, no matter how inexperienced it is. He feels like all the air has been sucked out of him when Rei finishes with a final peck and presses their foreheads together in that oh so familiar gesture. “...love you.”

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa whispers, and releases his grip on Rei’s hands so he can reach out. “Let me...try…”

His fingers brush against Rei’s ribs, chilly but solid to the touch. “I can feel you,” Nagisa says. He still can’t believe it. “I can touch you now, Rei-chan…” He brings his hand up from Rei’s ribs, past the bare skin of his stomach, right to the center of his chest. “I-I-I….” He spreads his fingers over where Rei’s heart should be. But even if he can touch Rei, there’s no more miracles to be had. There still isn’t a beating heart inside Rei’s chest and never will be again. Nagisa can’t let his disappointment show though. They’ve probably already surpassed their limit on miracles anyways. He grins a little and ducks his head. “If you love me, is it okay to admit I kinda enjoyed having you in a swimsuit for six months?”

Rei flushes red and bites at his lip as he looks away, but after a second the laughter bubbles up and he shakes his head in resignation.

“Well, if someone had to get enjoyment out of it…”

Nagisa giggles again, and then steps forward, his face fitting perfectly in the crook of Rei’s neck as he presses his body tight to Rei’s. His hands go down and around and find Rei’s shoulder blades to cling tight to, and, through his jacket, he can feel Rei’s hands looping around him and pulling him in just a little bit closer.

They stand there amidst the falling snow, and Rei sways them gently from side to side, the softest of rocking motions. It’s a perfect moment, Nagisa thinks. And he never wants it to end. He shuts his eyes and hides his face away in Rei’s neck, like this is all it will take to escape the reality of their situation. He doesn’t want to think about it. Not yet.

But he has to, at some point. “How long can you stay?” he whispers into Rei’s neck as he opens his eyes again, and Rei moves one hand to start stroking up and down Nagisa’s back, barely detectable through his thick coat but still comforting.

“Not long. I told you I love you. That’s almost everything I left unfinished.”

“What’s the rest?”

“Saying goodbye, I think.”  

“And then you have to leave?”

Rei pulls back, and takes one hand to brush a thumb below Nagisa’s eye. He doesn’t say anything for a long time, and Nagisa waits patiently for an answer. “I do have to leave,” he says at last. “The Netherworld pulls me back.”

Nagisa shakes his head and shuts his eyes squeezed tight, jutting out his lower lip. “It’s not fair.”

“Mmm.” Rei kisses his forehead again. “It’s not.”

The kiss doesn’t erase the pout from his face, and Rei chuckles when he leans away. “Oh, come on, don’t give me that.”

Nagisa tightens his grip on Rei’s shoulder blades and burrows himself as close as possible. After a second, he feels Rei rest his chin on the top of his head.

“Would you stay if you could?” he asks, and again, Rei takes his time answering.

“No.”

“What?” Nagisa jerks back, and it’s only Rei’s arms looped around his waist that stops him from pulling away completely. That wasn’t the answer he was supposed to hear. “Why not?”

He’s expecting that vaguely annoying sage expression when he glares up at Rei, but instead Rei is staring back down at him with lip trembling, not even bothering to try to hide the tears in the corners of his eyes. He doesn’t want to be saying this anymore than Nagisa wants to be hearing it.

“Because I’m dead, Nagisa,” he whispers. “If I was still alive, believe me, I would spend every day loving you and being loved by you and be...so happy.” Rei shakes his head and lets out a weary laugh. “But I don’t belong in your life anymore.”

“Yes you do!” Nagisa says, pressing both hands against Rei’s chest. “I want you! I want you _here_ , Rei-chan!”

But Rei just shakes his head again, and cups Nagisa’s face with one hand, so gentle. Always so gentle. “I belong in the past, Nagisa. I’m not a part of your future. What kind of life would I be asking you to live, if I stayed? Always chained to the ghost of a teenager? Even as you grow up and go to university and get a job? Meet someone else and...and fall in love with them? Would you really want me to haunt you, that entire time?”

“Yes!” Nagisa tells him firmly, before Rei has even finished his sentence.

“No.” Rei shakes his head again. “I won’t do that to you. You deserve to live a life that’s full of everything, Nagisa. To live a life as vibrant and amazing as you can imagine. And I won’t hold you back.” His hand leaves Nagisa’s face, and Rei takes a step backward.

“No!” Nagisa yelps and lunges forward, grabbing Rei once more and holding tight. “Don’t leave. Don’t leave, please.” He presses his face into Rei’s chest and hears that silence inside, to him almost as loud as a beating heart. “Please,” he whispers. “Stay with me. Just one night. If you’re going to leave me, at least let me have one night.”

“One... _night_?” Nagisa can already hear the panic in Rei’s voice.

“Nothing funny, Rei-chan,” Nagisa tells him quickly, tongue tripping over itself as he goes hot at the cheeks with the very insinuation. “I just—I just want one night where I can feel you holding me. Before you leave, please, give me that.” He sniffs and lifts his face to smile the best smile he can manage at Rei. “Share a tent with me, Rei-chan?”

“Nagisa…” Rei sighs, and then suddenly there are more kisses—an attack of them—peppering his nose and cheeks and forehead.

“Mmph, Rei-chan!” Nagisa laughs and shakes his head until Rei brings a hand up to catch his chin. The flurry of kisses stops, and Rei leans down to press a kiss to his lips, short and chaste, but his fingers linger on Nagisa’s face even after he releases his grip and steps away. “Alright,” Rei whispers, and finally lets his hand drop away. “One night.”

“One night,” Nagisa agrees, and sticks a hand out. Rei rolls his eyes a little but reaches out for the handshake. Nagisa refuses to let go though, turning the handshake into a handhold as soon as he can. He might have to dig his gloves back out of his pockets soon to prevent his hands from freezing off, but for now he enjoys the way their fingers weave together. He doesn’t realize he’s staring at their hands until Rei brings them up to his mouth to kiss the back of Nagisa’s, and then he blushes again.

Rei is getting difficult to see in the fading light, and when they start up the incline towards the sidewalk, Nagisa accidentally drags him through a tree. Rei grunts, and Nagisa winces. “Sorry,” he mutters as he keeps trudging upwards.

“It’s alright,” Rei tells him, and gives his hand a squeeze.

“So...I’m the only thing you can touch?” Nagisa asks. He remembers Rei’s hands stroking the back of his coat. “Me and my clothes?” He reaches the sidewalk, where the streetlights have begun to illuminate the snowflakes still drifting gently down. Rei reaches a hand out and drags it through a streetlight.

“I think so,” he says. “After all, you’re the only thing I really needed to be able to touch. I don’t care about trees or street lamps.”

“Yeah but…” Nagisa trails off. He doesn’t really have the words. Pencils, sure, that was a fun experiment but the thought that Rei—by sheer willpower—could be able to touch _him_ …

He blinks up at Rei, standing in the warm light cast down upon them, still toting around those ridiculous goggles and wearing a faint smile on his face as he watches Nagisa. He came back from the Netherworld a second time, all so he could tell Nagisa he loves him. All so he could say goodbye. How badly would you need to tell someone you love them to be able to transcend the barrier between living and dead an impossible second time? How much would you have to love someone to be able to break all the rules of the living and dead completely and let them feel your touch?

He thinks he knows the answer: so, so, _so_ much.

“You really do love me, don’t you?” he whispers, and Rei nods.

“I really do.”

Nagisa can’t think of anything else to say. There’s really nothing _to_ say. Nothing that can possibly convey everything he feels, everything he could say, everything he _needs_ to say. Maybe there are some things you never have the right words for, and maybe those are the things words wouldn’t be right for.

“Rei-chan…” he murmurs, and puts his free hand to the back of Rei’s neck, pulling down ever so slightly as he rises up on his toes. He kisses the corner of Rei’s mouth with the lightest of touches, and just stays there a moment, eyes shut and lips lingering along Rei’s cheek.

Unfinished. That’s how he had felt. An unfinished mess of person with no idea where he was going. But already he can feel his loose ends wrapping up, his final threads weaving into place as Rei’s free hand comes around to support him. Rei came back. He didn’t abandon Nagisa. He didn’t just leave him behind without a second thought. Rei _loves_ him. And he loves Rei back and they only have this one night before they have to say goodbye. Nagisa has to make every second of every moment count.

He kisses the corner of Rei’s lips once more before his toes begin to hurt and he lowers himself back down slowly, smiling at Rei’s slightly confused expression as he does so.

“Let’s go home?” he suggests, and Rei matches his smile, squeezing their hands together tight.

“Let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next update next Monday!  
> Thank you for reading and for any reviews/kudos/messages/recs/anonymous song suggestions etc, they mean the world!  
> Hope you all have a good week!


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the response on the last chapter! I hope everyone enjoys this one.

He forgets about the squeaky hinge, which is why his attempt to sneak in the front door only lasts five seconds before dismal failure.

“Nagisa!” His mother’s voice, loud behind him, and he squeaks even louder than the hinge and slams the door shut out of surprise. Right through Rei, who makes a disgruntled sound and stands there sourly in the middle of the door. Nagisa grimaces at him and turns around sheepishly. “Hi Mom.”

From the way she’d said his name he’s expecting anger. But instead, she’s standing there with the home phone clutched to her chest, face pale with worry.

“Mom?”

“You weren’t answering your phone,” she says, and he’s afraid she’s going to break the one she’s holding with how tight her hands go. Nagisa quickly glances over his shoulder at Rei, who must understand his expression perfectly because he nods and slips past them both in the hallway, heading for Nagisa’s room. He reaches out and squeezes Nagisa’s hand gently as he passes, silent reassurance, and Nagisa can’t get over how he can feel Rei’s touch while his mom doesn’t even see him, has no idea that Rei is heading down the hallway so he can step through the door into Nagisa’s room.

But that’s not what the conversation is about. Nagisa digs his cellphone from his coat pocket, frowning. He was sure he had it set to jingle when he got a new call, but when he tries to swipe the screen open, all he gets is black. Out of battery.

“I ran out of charge,” he says, holding out his dead phone as evidence. He’s been bad about charging it lately, being out of the house so much. He should have known he needed to plug it in. Especially with his mom standing there looking so distressed, even if he doesn’t understand why this is such a big deal. She holds a hand over her eyes and sighs deeply when he holds out his phone to her.

“You ran out of charge,” she repeats in a hoarse whisper, and relaxes her death grip on the home phone, letting her arm flop to the side. She turns her back on him and heads into the kitchen, looking a little unsteady. Nagisa kicks off his boots and follows, now more than slightly bewildered.

His dad is already in the kitchen, leaning against the counter. Mizuki is in the corner by the fridge, eating a yogurt. She looks up with disinterest when Nagisa enters. “Told you he was okay,” she says, and then turns her attention back to her food. His dad, on the other hand, straightens up and crosses the room to meet his mom, rescuing the poor phone from her hands, and then stares at Nagisa—not accusing, not angry. Relieved.

“What—?” Nagisa starts to ask, but then his mom turns back to him, and now he can see the harried look in her eyes, the way her hair is all rumpled from her habit of grabbing it when she’s nervous.

“Your friend RIn called after you left their house.”

It’s too bad all that effort Rin put into transferring is going to waste when Nagisa _strangles_ him. But his mom keeps going before he can start planning the exact details of Rin’s demise, her voice getting higher pitched and faster as she goes and his dad grabs her shoulder to keep her at least partially grounded. “...and he told us you weren’t answering their calls or texts and so we’ve been trying to get ahold of you for hours and you weren’t answering, honey, we were so _scared_ …”

“Mom was going to call the police,” Mizuki chips in, and shrugs when their dad hushes her. “It’s true.”

Nagisa stares down at the phone in his hand and swipes a thumb across the screen again, smearing melted snow from his fingers across it. He’d worried them. And not just the little kind of worry he knew he was probably causing. A big kind of worry. Making his usually so composed mom so frantic she would even think of calling the police over him.

He never wanted to make them worry that much. But he doesn’t know exactly why this is such a big deal this time. He’s run out of charge before on his phone and it wasn’t a big deal. It never made his mom this frantic or his dad relieved to see him home. But this time it did, and he doesn’t have any excuses for it, none that they’ll believe.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers in a cracked voice, staring down at his phone so he doesn’t have to meet their eyes. “I’m sorry,” he repeats, and then squeaks again in surprise as his mom rushes forward and pulls him into her for a hug, a tight hug like he can remember her giving him when he was little, like she’s trying to absorb him back into her body.

“I was so scared you’d done something to hurt yourself, the way you’ve been acting lately…” She sounds close to crying, and probably has been, he realizes. Scared he’d hurt himself? Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no, oh no.

That’s why they were so worried when he didn’t answer their calls. Why his mom is hugging him like this, like she’s afraid to let go. They were afraid that he...

“Mom…” He hugs her back, hiding his face in her sweater. He’s already cried so much today, but already he can feel the tears rising back up to his eyes.“Mom, I’m safe, I wouldn’t do that…” This time it comes out more of a sob. “Mom, I’m sorry, I’m sorry I didn’t answer my phone, I didn’t mean…”

Another set of arms wraps around him, and then there’s his dad’s voice, gentle and soothing. “It’s alright. We’re just glad you’re alright.” Nagisa’s sure the snow sticking to him is now melting on them and getting them all cold and wet, but they don’t pull away, and the warmth of their hugs starts to pull the chill from his body.

“I’m sorry,” he sobs again, and really means it. He’s never really thought about just _how much_ he might be scaring his parents. His mom isn’t supposed to shake like this. They’re not supposed to be _frightened_. Somehow, somewhere, over the past six months, he’s gotten so wrapped up in Rei and his ghostliness that he’s almost lost touch with what’s real, what’s going on with the rest of his life. Maybe this is what Rei was talking about—worried about—if he stayed with Nagisa forever. That Nagisa would gradually cut himself loose from everything and everyone else and practically become a ghost himself.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t...I don’t…” He sniffs and tries to pull himself together. He’d been wandering around town while his parents were wondering if he was going to hurt himself or worse. He’d never realized that would even cross their minds. But how could it not, now that he looks back? He’d been recovering so well, beginning to smile and laugh and hang out with friends again, and then suddenly relapsed completely, hiding away in the dark of his room and then taking off, staying away for days at a time and then running away without telling anyone where he was going and not answering their calls for hours and hours. If one of his sisters or one of his friends had done that, Nagisa would have been terrified. But he’d been so consumed by his own grief and pain he hadn’t even considered what the others might be thinking. He wasn’t being selfish, he wasn’t doing it on purpose, he just…

He just lost himself, somewhere along the way.

“I’m so sorry,” he whispers, and can feel himself start to tremble. What can he say to make things alright? “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry…”

His mom shushes him and pets his hair. “It’s okay now.” She hiccups. “It-it’s okay now, you’re home.”

He nods where his face is pressed into her sweater, and wraps his arms a little more snugly around her, readjusting his head just a little so he can breathe. “I love you,” he whispers, since those seem to be his words of the night, and the arms around him tighten. “I can’t remember the last time I told you.”

“Oh, gross,” Mizuki says from the corner. She gets ignored. His mom squeezes him even more fiercely than she was already, to the point he’s wondering if he really will be absorbed back into her body.

“We love you too.”

He nods and sniffs again, and his voice comes out all high-pitched. “I’m sorry about everything. Since...since it happened. I’m sorry I can’t…”

He’s not even sure what he’s saying sorry about anymore. But his parents just hug him harder. He can’t remember being hugged by them like this, not even right after Rei died. Maybe they didn’t know how to reach out. Maybe he didn’t know how to ask.

“It’s hard,” his dad whispers. “We know it’s hard. It must be so hard.”

“Maybe we _should_ have you see a therapist,” his mom starts, “You seemed to be doing well but…”

“No,” he mutters, “Please don’t. I just…”

“I’m sure we could find one nearby and you could work around swimming…”

“Mom!” She stops muttering to herself as he pulls back, not enough to escape the hug, but enough to see her face. “Mom, I’m going to be okay.” Funny, even though his eyes are red and his voice is shaking, the words don’t taste like a lie this time.

The past six months have been miracle after miracle, for him. Maybe he gets one more. Maybe he’ll be okay.

He’ll _make_ himself okay. He’s stronger now. He can handle anything. He can be strong and brave and good and alright. He can be everything Rei believes he is. He can be everything he needs to be. No matter what happens after tonight. He’ll be alright.

“I’m going to be okay,” he repeats, straightening up and breathing in. He takes a second to close his eyes and compose himself, and can feel a calm come over him as he exhales and opens his eyes again. Yes. No matter what happens. He’s going to make sure he’s okay. It’s a strange thing to feel confident of, but that’s the emotion that buoys him up as he looks to dad, and then switches to his mom. The smile comes easier than he would have thought. “Yeah,” he says. “I’m going to be alright. I promise.”

 His mom stares at him for a moment before enveloping him in another squeezing hug.

“Are you sure?” she asks.

He nods. “Yeah. I am.” He’ll prove it to them. In the coming weeks, months, he’s going to be okay. It might take work, it might take reaching out for help, but he’s going to be alright in the end. That’s all everyone who loves him wants. “I’m really sure. I know I haven’t...handled things the best but...but I can do it now!”

His mom just stares at him for a moment before lifting a hand to the side of his face. “Nagisa…”

“How long is this soap opera going to go on?” Mizuki gripes.  

“No one is keeping you here!” Nagisa calls in a sing-song voice and she makes a face at him as his parents both chuckle and relax, tension easing from their bodies.

Nagisa laughs a little too and wipes at his face as well, where he can still feel the chill of tears that froze there. His parents loosen their grip and he steps away. “I’ll charge my phone,” he tells his mom, as she unwraps the scarf from around his neck. He shivers as snow goes down his shirt.

“I’ll warm up dinner for you,” she says, shaking the snow off that was clinging to his scarf. Nagisa nods, and goes to hang up all his wet things in the hallway. He glances down the hall to his room and hopes that Rei isn’t bored. He’d lie and say he bought something to eat while he was out, but he really is kind of hungry, and the way his mom sits next to him and occasionally rubs his shoulder while he eats tells him this was the best decision. He still wolfs everything down as fast as he can without arousing suspicion, and then yawns wide and theatrically.

“I’m tired,” he says.

“Okay.” His mom kisses his forehead before he can get up from the table. “Go take a shower to warm up.”

Nagisa nods obediently and heads for the hallway, his damp clothes beginning to stick to him unpleasantly.

Rei is sitting on the bed when Nagisa opens the door, running a finger down (and slightly through) the books stacked on the bedside table.

“Sorry I abandoned you,” Nagisa says quietly, leaning against the door to close it.

Rei shrugs one shoulder. “Nothing to be sorry about.” He runs his hand over the books another time. “It’s nice being able to see properly again,” he says, indicating his ghost glasses.

Nagisa doesn’t bring up the pair of real broken glasses on the opposite nightstand. Rei turns to him and cocks his head to the side. “Are you alright? With your parents?”

Nagisa laughs a little breathlessly and rubs the back of his head as he goes to turn on the lamp. Soft light illuminates the room. “Yeah. They were worried about me. My phone was out of battery and they were calling…” He moves across the room to plug his phone in. He’ll text all his friends as soon as he finishes his shower, let them know he’s okay.

“Oh.” Rei crosses an arm across his chest and his fingers begin to tap nervously. “I made you really late, didn’t I? I’m so—”

“Rei-chan, if you dare tell me you’re sorry for making me late I will smack you,” Nagisa warns him, and Rei rolls his eyes. “I’m gonna be a few minutes to take a shower, is that okay?” he asks. “You’ll be okay? You won’t be bored? You won’t disappear on me?”

Rei shifts on the bed so he’s sitting cross-legged and smiles. “Okay, yes, no, definitely no.”

“Definitely no?” Nagisa asks, and already Rei’s easy smile is easing the stress from his body, making his throat choke up a little from the sudden wave of happiness that tows him under and makes him feel all warm despite his snow-drenched clothes.

“Definitely no.” Rei nods and adjusts his glasses and Nagisa can’t help himself. He jumps up onto the bed and kisses Rei right on the lips with a smack, pulling away after only a second and bouncing back off the bed and towards the door. Rei blinks and touches fingers to his lips. “What was that for?”

“You looked cute,” Nagisa mumbles, biting down a grin as he disappears out the door. He can feel his face heating up to match the warmth in his stomach, the tears of the conversation with his parents turning into anticipation at the reality of being able to touch and talk with Rei again, to feel those hands on his skin and lips on his own. He falls at least twice going up the stairs and but still beats Chiasa to the bathroom by seconds, the both of them dashing for the door when they see the other coming from the opposite direction. “Ha ha!” Nagisa cries as he slips inside and closes the door in her face.

“Unfair!” she yells from beyond the locked door, and Nagisa starts the shower to drown her out. He doesn’t need long. And really, he shouldn’t feel as excited as he does. Rei has been sleeping in his bed for months.

But tonight. Tonight is special. He might have fallen in love with Rei in the nights where all they could was interlap their hands and pretend to be touching, but this time they really can touch. No pretending anymore.

But just for tonight. One last night they have together, and then it’s goodbye for good this time.

He scrubs shampoo through his hair and soaps up his body before rinsing everything off with nice hot water and wrapping a towel around his body and another around his hair like he’s seen his sisters do. He’s never minded having a wet pillow, but it’s not about him, so he should at least attempt to dry his hair.

He considers using the mint toothpaste instead of his usual bubblegum, but falls back to the usual. He doesn’t need to pretend, not with Rei, and Rei can accept that Nagisa still loves bubblegum flavored toothpaste and wears pajamas with spaceships on them.

“All yours,” he tells Chiasa with a bow when he exits the bathroom in a cloud of steam, and leaves wet footprints all the way back down the stairs to his room.

Rei is still waiting on the bed. Like he has nothing better to do. Actually, since Nagisa is the only person who can see or hear him, he probably doesn’t have anything better to do.

“I’m getting dressed,” Nagisa warns him as soon as the door is safely closed, and Rei puts his hands over his eyes. Nagisa drops the towel and quickly pulls out pajamas from his dresser. Blue with polka dots. He rubs the other towel a bit more vigorously in his hair before hanging both towels over the dresser.

“That’s going to damage the wood,” Rei tells him when he uncovers his eyes and sees the towels piled there.

“Oh well,” Nagisa says, heading for his phone. He swipes the screen open and sends a quick group text. _I’m home, sorry if I scared you._ He turns it on silent after that. No vibration or happy jingle is going to interrupt his time with Rei now.

Time with Rei.

He turns to Rei and watches him sitting there on the bed. Maybe he should be more careful, with his parents and sisters still up and about, but that would waste precious time. It’s already getting late. And ‘careful’ has never really been his thing.

Rei is starting to blush. “What?” he asks as Nagisa continues watching him.

Subtlety has never really been his thing either. He takes a running leap onto the bed, making Rei cry out in surprise, and laughs as he brings Rei toppling down into the pillows and sheets that billow up around them. Rei gives up without much of a fight and lies there defeated, a mess amidst blankets and pillows that still stick right through him. Rei is laughing too, deep in his chest, and Nagisa sucks in breath and slowly crawls until he’s right above Rei, nose to nose. No time for slow and nuanced wooing once everyone else in the house is quiet and it’s just the two of them. This will have to do.

Rei’s invisible anyway. That gives them a certain amount of freedom.

“Hello Rei-chan,” he whispers, dipping his head a little closer.

“Nagisa,” Rei says in return, and brings a hand up to stroke his cheek. Nagisa captures that hand before it can reach its destination and kisses each of Rei’s fingers in turn. He lets his lips linger on the last finger and shuts his eyes, sitting up a little and holding Rei’s hand in both of his. After a moment, he feels a hand on his hip, and then Rei is rolling them over, so Nagisa is trapped underneath.

“Mmm, no fair Rei-chan!” he complains, when Rei pins down his arms. “You’re bigger—oh. Oh. Oh.”

Rei chuckles, and presses another kiss beneath Nagisa’s ear, nosing at the wet curls of hair. He follows it with the softest of kisses, barely touching, all the way down Nagisa’s neck.

“Rei-chan,” Nagisa whispers, and kicks his feet a little into the mattress. He’s never been kissed before after all, and this simply isn’t fair. “Rei-chan, Rei-chan, Rei-chan…”

“What?” Rei asks, and kisses his mouth, captures the next ‘Rei-chan’ and turns it into a moan.

He’s thought about it of course. What it would be like to kiss someone. To lay on a bed together, to touch, to kiss, to do even more maybe, and maybe some of those fantasies happened to involve Rei, but this isn’t anything like those fumbling, fuzzy half-formed fantasies. Rei kisses him so soft and careful, and Nagisa tingles from head to toe with how right it feels.

“You’re a very good kisser,” he admits, and Rei raises his head, going a little red.

“Really?”

Nagisa’s lip quirks up in a smile and he shrugs. “Or maybe you’re terrible and it’s just because I’ve never been kissed before. No comparison. You’re probably awful.”

Rei scrunches up his face and then grins, a mischievous grin Nagisa isn’t used to seeing on Rei’s face.

“So, for comparison, when I do this…” He kisses Nagisa again, nips at his lower lip and slowly drags his hands up Nagisa’s arms until their fingers interlace on the pillows. “And then this,” he whispers, and kisses down Nagisa’s jaw right to that same place beneath his ear. “And this,” he breathes, before he paints kiss after kiss down Nagisa’s neck, taking his time while Nagisa gasps and squirms, fingers clenching hard in Rei’s. Rei stops at the junction of his shoulder and neck, and simply buries his face there, breathing deep.

“You smell like coconut,” he says after a moment.

“That’s Mizuki’s shampoo,” Nagisa tells him, heart feeling like it’s going to jump right out of his chest and do a tapdance down the street. And then, just to clear up any confusion: “My toothpaste is bubblegum.”

“Yes, I figured that out,” Rei says, still hiding his face. One hand slowly untangles their fingers, only to hold his hand tight once more, like Rei changed his mind halfway through.

Nagisa squirms again. “Can I kiss you now?”

Rei laughs quietly against Nagisa’s skin, and sits up. His hair is all messy and his glasses are askew. “You should take those off,” Nagisa tells him, pointing.

Rei shakes his head. “Later. Right now I want to be able to see you.”

The way he says it, so honest and earnest, makes Nagisa blush, and he can feel it spread all the way down his chest. But Rei just smiles and slides one hand down to Nagisa’s side and the other to the back of his head, and then rolls them halfway, so they’re in the middle of the bed now, legs tangled and Nagisa’s head pillowed on Rei’s arm. Rei’s other hand hovers, unsure of where to go, so Nagisa grabs it and puts it on his waist. He enjoys the cool curl of fingers there. “My turn to kiss you?” he asks, and then goes for it without Rei’s reply.

He uses too much tongue, and Rei might feel like he’s being assailed on the mouth by an overenthusiastic octopus, but he doesn’t complain. Just uses his arms to draw Nagisa closer and half on top of him. A part of Nagisa is a niggling reminder that his door is unlocked and he’s going to have the hardest time explaining how he’s hovering up off his bed while making out with the air, but the rest of him pushes that worry away and reaches an arm out to drag a blanket over his body, so at least the hovering thing will be hidden.

“Are you co—?” Rei starts to ask, but Nagisa swallows the rest of his question. He isn’t cold. Well, maybe a little, because Rei is still so cool to the touch, but not enough to stop.

After a few minutes of exploring everything he can do involving their mouths, Nagisa pushes up from Rei a little and grimaces. “I’m not really good at this.” Honestly, it doesn’t help that Rei is naked from the waist down. Nagisa has no idea where to put his hands. But Rei just looks at him with this expression that makes Nagisa feel like he’s the whole world and then some, and says, “You’re really not. But don’t stop.”

“Rei-chaaan,” Nagisa whines, “You could lie to me just a little sometimes.” But he lowers himself back down once more and slides his hand to cup Rei’s neck while the other curls around his shoulder. He kisses gentler this time, less frantic, and Rei responds in kind, fingers rubbing small circles on Nagisa’s waist, right where he shirt rides up and his hip is exposed.

Practice makes perfect, he knows that, but he only has one night of practice so he needs to speed up the process. He kisses Rei again and again and again until his head is spinning and his body trembling and maybe this is another form of drowning, to want to lose himself in every touch and every moment and sink into time and never leave again.

“I love you, Rei-chan,” he whispers, trailing his nose down Rei’s cheek and kissing the corner of his mouth. “I love you so much. I want to stay like this forever.” He moves so he straddles Rei and takes his hands, cupping Rei’s jaw on both sides and rubbing his thumbs in gentle motion over his cheeks. “I don’t want you to leave.”

Rei shuts his eyes and places his hands on top of Nagisa’s. “I don’t want to go either.”

“Then don’t.” Nagisa might be beginning to understand Rei’s reasons, but it doesn’t mean he has to agree.

Rei opens his eyes once more and smiles sadly, raising one hand to the back of Nagisa’s head and pulling him down for another kiss. Once there, both arms go to wrap around him, until Nagisa is once again held tight against Rei’s body.

“It would be selfish,” Rei says, and Nagisa can’t crane his neck enough to see the expression on Rei’s face. “It would be so selfish of me to ask you to live that kind of life. I came back the first time because you needed me to help you move past my death. And moving past my death means you have to move past me.”

Nagisa raises himself up a little and shakes his head vehemently. “No, no, I don’t want to move past you! I...I...I couldn’t bear it if I lost you! I couldn’t bear it!” How can Rei say something like that?

But Rei just kisses his forehead, making him stop before he can really get worked up. “You’ll never lose me, Nagisa. Because…” He takes a deep breath, and Nagisa can feel the way he inhales, and exhales. Inhales again. “Moving past me doesn’t mean you have to forget me. It just means I’m not going to hold you back. I want you to live the most amazing life you can imagine. The most amazing, colorful, wondrous life, and I...I don’t fit into that. Not some teenaged ghost in a swimsuit. And besides…” He uses one arm to gesture at his stomach. “My unfinished business is almost complete. I can feel the Netherworld pulling me back. I don’t think it likes it when the dead stay too long among the living.”

He readjusts their bodies so his nose is pressed in behind Nagisa’s ear, inhaling that smell of coconut shampoo he must like a lot. “I want to be with you. More than anything. And I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, Nagisa…”

Nagisa hears the catch of breath, and brings a hand up to run through Rei’s hair. His fingers brush against the glasses and he makes the executive decision to take them off. He slowly slides the glasses from Rei’s face and twists away for just a second so he can lay them on the bedspread a safe distance away. He twists back into place and returns to petting Rei’s hair. “Rei-chan…”

“I’m so sorry for dying,” Rei whispers. “I wish I could stay. I wish I could stay, so badly. But I’m dead. And I…”

Nagisa wriggles until he can grab Rei’s face and kiss him again, pressing their faces close together. “I love you, Rei-chan,” he whispers, and kisses each one of Rei’s eyelids, and then the furrow of his brow that’s become so familiar over the past few months with how much squinting Rei has been doing. “I love you and I’ll always love you and I won’t ever, ever forget you, ever.” He kisses Rei’s lips again. “Please don’t spend our one night together telling me you’re sorry. Please just kiss me so much I’ll be able to feel it for the rest of my life.”

Rei smiles and laughs a little at that, and then runs a hand over his eyes as he sits up. “You stole my glasses.”

Nagisa grabs them from the bed and drops them onto his own nose. Everything goes blurry. “Not stealing. Saving. You’re going to break them even more. And I’m pretty sure you only get one set of ghost glasses.” Rei rolls his eyes and reaches his hand out anyway. Nagisa drops the glasses into his palm with a sigh, and Rei sticks the glasses back on and pushes them up to where he likes. In truth, Rei in glasses looks a little funny now. Nagisa had gotten so used to him squinting at everything and pressing his nose almost through books while he read them. He’s known Rei without glasses longer than he’s known him with them. “There. Can you see again?”

Rei just hums and grabs Nagisa’s still outstretched hand, pulling him gently back in. “Come here,” he says, and Nagisa comes willingly, lets Rei lay them side by side so their foreheads rest together. Nagisa reaches behind him to grab his comforter and tug it over himself.

“Am I making you cold?” Rei asks, concern coloring his voice.

Nagisa shakes his head, and kisses him again, soft and sweet. “Cozier this way. Now, more kisses!”

“Bossy,” Rei mutters, but he’s smiling as he curls his body to match Nagisa’s, one pair of hands clasped between them and the other gently guiding at the back of Nagisa’s head as Rei kisses him again. And again. Kisses that are light and gentle, and kisses that tug at his lower lip. Kisses that invade his mouth until he’s whining and pulling Rei into him until Rei has to lean back, lips swollen and breathing hard. And since Rei doesn’t even need to breathe, Nagisa takes that as quite the compliment. There are kisses up his temple and down to his ear and down his neck and peppering his collarbone, making him squirm and Rei laughs when Nagisa has to admit it tickles. Nagisa starts at the corner of Rei’s mouth and tries to return the favor, making his way with lingering kisses down to Rei’s jaw, and then getting up on his hands so he can continue down Rei’s neck. “Nom nom nom,” he mutters as he goes, and Rei bursts into laughter, pushing Nagisa off and rolling them over until he’s right on top of Nagisa once again.

“You’re squishing me, Rei-chan!” Nagisa complains, and Rei kisses his nose, and his forehead, and his lips, and presses Nagisa’s hands into the mattress with each of his and kisses him, deep drugging kisses that could last an eternity or only a few seconds each, he’s not sure. There’s a warmth in his chest and it radiates out further with each touch, of lips or hands or foreheads, until his entire body feels warm and heavy. And Rei keeps kissing him like that until Nagisa can barely think straight enough to reach over and turn off the bedside table light. He pauses for a moment, hand still on the lamp, and lets out a deep breath in the sudden dark of the room. “Yep, I’ll remember that,” he says weakly. He feels Rei come up behind him, and turns around, locking his arms around Rei’s chest and bearing him into the mattress. It takes a bit of repositioning, but finally they’re there, with Nagisa’s head tucked beneath Rei’s chin and pillowed by Rei’s other arm, Rei’s hand playing with his still slightly damp hair. Nagisa has one arm flung over Rei’s shoulder, keeping him close, along with one leg tossed over Rei’s own. Their free hands lay clasped between them, gripping tight. He can’t see Rei well at all anymore, just what is illuminated through the window, but it’s alright. He can still feel him. He moves his hand to start tracing meaningless patterns across Rei’s bare chest.

There’s a soft knock on the door that startles them and makes Nagisa jolt off Rei completely, but it’s just Nagisa’s parents. “Goodnight Nagisa,” his mom calls as she opens the door just a crack, so he can see her and his dad behind her, and it’s still hard to believe they can’t see Rei right here next to him, looking just as alarmed as Nagisa feels. They would have some very choice words if they could, he knows. The one upside to a ghost boyfriend. Lover. Whatever Rei is.

“G-goodnight!” he calls back, and for a second he’s afraid his parents are actually going to come inside, but he yawns and pulls the blankets up around him like he’s settling back into sleep, and after a moment his mom closes the door once more.

He lies there with Rei for maybe five seconds before the both of them start to giggle.

“It is getting late, huh?” Nagisa whispers, and Rei nods, looking towards the window, where the snow flutters down across a backdrop of the moon and stars.

“You should get some sleep.”

Nagisa scrunches up his nose and shakes his head, hiding his face away in Rei’s neck. There’s an opportunity, so he takes it, and kisses up and down Rei’s neck, finding that spot beneath his chin that makes Rei collapse beneath him and paying it special attention. Rei moans underneath him and his hands clutch at Nagisa’s waist, his shoulders, his arms, before giving up completely and just dropping to his sides as he muffles further sounds by clamping his mouth shut. Nagisa grins and darts up to kiss Rei’s mouth back open before returning to his neck and making Rei start to squirm. Maybe he’s not so bad at this kissing thing after all. “Don’t wanna,” Nagisa says at last, when he’s sure Rei’s coherency has left him.

“Yeah?” Rei manages a moment later and Nagisa suppresses his laugh in his hands before pushing himself up on top of Rei, arms folded across Rei’s chest with his chin pillowed on top while the rest of his body follows in line. Rei peers down at him cross-eyed.

“I love you,” Nagisa says, because he doesn’t feel like he’ll ever be able to say it enough.

“I love you too,” Rei replies, and yeah, no way he’ll ever be able to hear that enough either. Nagisa hums and smiles as he settles more contentedly on top of Rei, kicking his legs slowly through the air.

“I love you, Rei-chan. Like, I really love you.”

Rei lifts a hand and lays it against Nagisa’s cheek, stroking his thumb beneath his eye. “I really love you back.”

Nagisa hums again and leans into Rei’s touch. Rei’s other hand starts stroking up and down Nagisa’s back, and he closes his eyes, starting to doze off to the feel of it. He opens one bleary eye to see Rei smiling at him, that smile he reserves just for Nagisa.

“Mmm…” Nagisa grumbles, and lifts his head. Rei stops stroking his cheek. “I just told you I don’t want to sleep yet.”

“But you’re tired.”

Nagisa shakes his head. “This is my one last night with you. I don’t want to spend it sleeping. Plus it’s unfair. _You_ can stay awake the whole night.”

“I’ll sleep too.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. I love sleeping next to you.” Rei cups Nagisa’s face with both hands. “I feel like I’m right where I belong.”

Nagisa sucks in breath, and feels his throat choke up. He pulls himself up Rei’s body until they’re nose to nose, and catches Rei’s lips in his. Kisses him and kisses him and kisses him, dotting kisses to his forehead, pushing his glasses down so he can kiss his closed eyelids and the corners of his eyes, and then his cheeks, his nose, each side of his mouth. The tears well in his eyes before he can stop them, and when he kisses Rei’s mouth again, he knows Rei can feel the tears on his lips. “I love you so much Rei-chan,” he whispers, breaking away and pressing their foreheads together. “I love...it’s so unfair…”

Rei’s hands begin to rub up and down his back again, slow and soothing as he nods and smiles ruefully. “I know. I know it is.”

“We could have been so _good_ together.”

“Yes.”

“But I still love you. Just as much. So much I can’t believe. Is this what love always feels like?”

“I’m not sure,” Rei says, twisting his head so he can kiss Nagisa’s cheek. “You’re the only one I’ve ever loved this way.”

Nagisa slides off Rei’s side so he can rest his head on Rei’s shoulder. Rei’s arms close around him, perfect and safe, and one of Rei’s hands goes to cup the back of Nagisa’s head. Nagisa strokes his fingers across the back of Rei’s arm, and then stretches up so he can reach Rei’s face, combing his hair out of his face and occasionally bumping against his glasses. “I asked Kou-chan,” he says at last.

“Wait, you told Kou-san?” Rei’s voice goes all high-pitched, and Nagisa laughs as he keeps petting Rei’s hair off his forehead.

“I told her I was in love. I didn’t tell her it was you. She wasn’t a lot of a help, but we did get interrupted when the cookies burned.”

Rei turns his head so he can see Nagisa better. “Wait, this was at the Christmas cookie baking?”

“Yeah.”

“So you already knew then.”

“Knew what?”

“That you loved me.”

“Yeah. I did. When did you find out?” Nagisa stops brushing Rei’s hair and turns more in his arms so he can get both hands on the sides of Rei’s face.

Rei sighs and looks away to the window. “I don’t know. I probably knew for a long time. I just didn’t realize that I knew until after I left.”

Nagisa hums again and tries to press himself a little closer to Rei, impossibly close. It feels so strange to not be pressing right through him. He grapples for the blanket and tosses it over himself, and watches it sink through Rei just like normal. Rei is here and solid and real, but just for him.

“People never seem to think most people are really in love with the first person they love, do they?” he asks, frowning a little.

Rei makes a noncommittal sound. “Maybe that’s true.” Nagisa pinches him. “I didn’t say that’s true for us!” He reaches with his free hand to tug at Nagisa’s nose. “I think people mean that when we’re in love for the first time, we might not completely know a person, so we might love the idea of who that person is, but not the reality. That’s a lot of teenage relationships, probably. But us...us…” He tugs Nagisa’s nose again and Nagisa makes a face at him. Rei laughs. “I’ve been with you almost every moment of every day. I think I know exactly who you are and I love every part of you, the good and the bad and everything else. Everything you are, everything you might become, and everything I might still be discovering about you.” He smiles softly, and Nagisa can feel himself blushing, so he hides his face in Rei’s shoulder.

“I don’t have a bad side,” he proclaims, and Rei chuckles, hand wandering to stroke the side of his face once more.

“Sorry, of course you don’t. I apologize.” They lapse into silence, and Nagisa closes his eyes, letting himself focus on the feel of Rei’s arms around, Rei’s fingers gentle on his face. Rei doesn’t smell like coconut or bubblegum. He doesn’t seem to smell like anything much. Maybe snow. The smell of fresh snow.

“I love you so much, Rei-chan,” he murmurs at last, running a hand up and down Rei’s side. “I love you so much and nobody will ever know. I can’t ever tell anyone.” He squeezes his eyes tighter shut, and Rei must feel the wetness on his shoulder because his fingers travel up to Nagisa’s eyes, wiping the tears away. “Why do things have to be this way? Why can’t you be...why can’t you be alive and we can be happy…”

Because that’s the thing. He might have Rei for this one night, but it’s only one night. They don’t get a happy ending.

“You _will_ be happy,” Rei tells him firmly. “You have Kou-san and Rin-san and Haruka-senpai and Makoto-senpai…”

“No!” That’s not what he meant, and he knows Rei knows it. “It won’t be the same. You won’t be with me!” He pushes himself up on his hands and Rei’s arms fall from around him as he sits up and points an accusing finger at Rei. “And don’t you dare say anything like ‘I’ll always be with you’ because it’s not like that! It’s not like that at all! You’re leaving again and I’ll…” He feels like his heart is being squeezed by a vice and his voice comes out small and scratchy. “I’ll never see you again.” His arm drops uselessly to his side as the reality of his words sets in. Suddenly, his promises to his parents that he’ll be alright taste like lies again. How can he be alright without Rei at his side? “Rei-chan…” he whispers in a hiccup, and then Rei is pulling him to his chest, crushing Nagisa in a hug.

“Nagisa…” Rei murmurs, and Nagisa grabs his face, kisses Rei with desperation, too much teeth and too little breath.

“Please...please…” he whispers in the air between them. “Please don’t...please...please...I don’t know what I’ll do…” Rei cups Nagisa’s face to stop the frantic flurry of kisses and Nagisa squeezes his eyes shut, tears falling free. “What am I supposed to do when you leave?”

Rei doesn’t say anything, and it’s Nagisa’s muffled little sob that breaks the silence. And then another. Another. He tries opening his eyes but the tears make everything blurry, but he’s pretty sure Rei is crying too. Sure of it when Rei presses their mouths together and he can feel their tears intermingling on their cheeks.

“You,” Rei says firmly, tilting their foreheads together and breathing hard. “Are going to be happy. Do you hear me? You are going to live a long, amazing life and...and...please just don’t…” Any show of strength Rei was trying to show falls apart as his voice breaks. “Please just don’t ever f-forget me.”

Nagisa shakes his head violently from side to side and climbs up into Rei’s lap, anything to be closer as he clasps his arms around Rei’s neck and kisses his cheek, lets his face slide down to the hollow of Rei’s neck, tears leaving a trail down Rei’s face. He kisses the cold skin he finds there at the base of Rei’s throat. “Never,” he vows in a whisper. “Never, never, I could never forget you, Rei-chan. I’m always going to remember you.” He kisses him again, and feels Rei’s arms circling his back, crushing them closer. “I’m always, always going to love you. No matter what else happens. If I live a hundred and eighty years I’m still going to love you. Forever and ever.”

Rei is shaking beneath him, better at muffling his cries than Nagisa is, and Nagisa holds him tight and repeats his promise, over and over. “I won’t forget you. I won’t forget you.”

Why did this have to happen to Rei? To someone so good who deserved so much more? He lost his family, his home, his friends, his life...and come morning he’s going to lose Nagisa as well.

Nagisa doesn’t want to have to say goodbye, and he’s beginning to truly understand why Rei left without saying anything the first time.

He slides a hand up to cup the back of Rei’s head, fingers tangling in his hair, and lifts his mouth to speak directly in Rei’s ear. “I am...always going to love you, Rei-chan. And I’ll never forget you. Ever. I promise.”

Rei’s still crying, and Nagisa can’t seem to stop either. He takes a shuddering breath and blinks the tears away, before holding Rei a little tighter. “I’m not going to forget the smell of the flowers when I went jogging with you that one morning,” he says softly, and Rei stills a little beneath him, so Nagisa continues. “I’m not going to forget watching you at track practice. I’m not going to forget seeing you in class for the first time. I’m not going to forget when we went to Samezuka and you belly flopped into the pool.” Rei snorts a little at that one and Nagisa laughs too, petting Rei’s hair. “I’m not going to forget how happy I was when you agreed to join the swim club. I’m not going to forget trying to teach you how to do breaststroke, and I’m not going to forget going to store together and that silly rainbow swimsuit you tried on. I’m not going to forget…” The next memories that pop up are the ones of the island, and he doesn’t want those. “I’m not going to forget when you first came back to me, and I thought you were a murderer at first or something because who would be at the pool at that time of night?”

“That’s what you thought?” Rei asks, in a voice thick from crying, and Nagisa smiles and tilts his head to the side so his temple is pressed against Rei’s, hands petting his hair.

“Yeah. And then it was you, and I won’t forget riding the train together and I won’t forget when you came and found me at school and I won’t forget the first night we shared the bed and I won’t forget you coming up with the cellphone idea and I won’t forget…” He laughs again, the laughter coming easier now. “I won’t forget the rules. I’ll keep the rules forever. Just to be extra sure I don’t forget them. And I won’t forget…” There’s so much to not forget. Rei in the classroom with him. Going to the summer festival. Seeing Rei in the water of the pool and staying up until Rei came home that night. Train rides back and forth, back and forth, and the way Nagisa would inch their fingertips together until they barely touched. His birthday. Rei’s birthday. Christmas shopping and going to the movies and the hotpot disaster at Haru’s house. Staring at the stars and walking near the shore and sleeping pressed forehead to forehead and hands mingling in between. The days turning into weeks into months of Rei falling into his life and making him feel alive once more, making him smile, making him be able to be happy.

Saving him, actually, saving him completely and absolutely.

“I won’t forget falling in love with you,” he says at last. “I won’t ever forget that.”

Rei’s shudders have reduced to a shivering, and Nagisa levers his legs against the mattress to lay them both back down. He turns Rei’s face towards his and kisses away every teardrop he finds, until Rei is smiling once again. Nagisa kisses that smile too.

“I won’t ever forget what it feels like to do this either,” he adds, and steals another kiss. “But I should probably do it a few more times just to be safe.”

“Is that so?”

“Mmm.” Nagisa settles along Rei’s side, still up on his elbows so he can pepper Rei’s face with kisses as he reaches for a blanket and wraps it around himself. It does get a little chilly, actually, being pressed against Rei for extended periods of time like this. But he won’t mention it. He tries to go back to small kisses, but Rei pulls him in and down, one hand along Nagisa’s cheek taking a simple peck and making it deep as his other hand finds Nagisa’s back, wrapping around so Rei can pull Nagisa half on top of him, their legs tangled and one of Nagisa’s arms flung across Rei’s chest. Nagisa uses the other arm to hold Rei’s hand to his own cheek, his fingers stroking over pencil callouses that will be stuck there forever. He fits their fingers together and deepens the kiss, breaks away for breath, and kisses Rei again. His nose bumps Rei’s glasses, throwing them askew, and they both stop to giggle as Rei readjusts them. “Just take them off,” Nagisa tells him.

Rei shakes his head and rubs his thumb beneath Nagisa’s eye. “I want to remember what you look like. Not all blurry.” He kisses the tip of Nagisa’s nose. “You have cute freckles.”

Nagisa blushes. Funny, how he can hear Rei tell him he loves him and could hear it a hundred times more, but the second Rei says his freckles are cute, his face lights up pink. He kisses Rei’s mouth again, softer and slower this time, to match the heaviness in his body. He’s getting tired despite his best efforts. He kisses Rei again.

But of course Rei knows him by now. “You’re tired,” he says, stroking beneath his eye once more.

Nagisa makes a slightly pathetic whining noise. “I don’t want to miss out on any time with you.”

Rei hums and closes his eyes, letting his head fall back to the mattress. “Sleeping next to you isn’t wasting time for me.”

Nagisa huffs. “Fine, you sleep.” He busies himself with kissing everywhere on Rei’s face once more, moving his glasses up into his hair to reach. Once that’s done, he goes and kisses Rei’s ear, and then moves down his chin back to the spot beneath his chin that makes Rei groan and shift beneath him.

“You’re making things difficult.”

“Kiss me some more,” Nagisa demands, and goes back to kissing that place, adding a nip of his teeth to make Rei groan a little louder.

“ _You_ are difficult.”

“Kiss me some more.”  

“Fine.” Nagisa squeaks as Rei rolls them over and cages Nagisa in. Rei swallows his squeak halfway through and tangles one hand in Nagisa’s hair, forcing Nagisa to keep his head still as Rei kisses across to his jaw, and then down his neck with slow, careful kisses that make Nagisa squirm.

“Rei-chaaaan…”

“You wanted me to kiss you some more,” Rei mutters, and noses aside the collar of Nagisa’s nightshirt to kiss the junction of his neck and shoulder. Nagisa bites down on his lip to keep any noises from escaping. But it’s strange. Before today, if he’d imagined kissing someone like this, it would have made his face turn bright red with inappropriate thoughts, or at least pink like when Rei complimented his freckles. But every one of Rei’s kisses is so careful and affectionate and gentle, like Rei is truly memorizing each and every one, and instead of hot and bothered, all Nagisa really feels is loved. Cherished. He can’t believe it’s possible to feel so loved.

He wraps one hand around the goggles still hanging from Rei’s neck and hauls him back up so Rei will kiss his lips once more. Rei keeps his hand locked in Nagisa’s damp hair as Rei kisses him again, and again, and again. And Nagisa lies there and loves it, runs his hands up and down Rei’s back, holding him close, hoping his touch conveys just as much love as Rei’s kisses do.

“I love you,” he gasps between kisses, just in case, and Rei smiles, so beautiful, like always. Like starlight.

“I love you too.”

Nagisa can feel his lip trembling, and brings both arms up to lock around Rei’s neck and pull him down so Rei rests on top of him. He refuses to let go even as Rei tries to get up to reposition himself.

“You’re going to get crushed.”

“You’re not that heavy.”

“That’s not what you said earlier.”

“I changed my mind.”

“You’re going to be cold.”

“I don’t care.”

Rei sighs. “Nagisa…” He reaches behind and unlocks Nagisa’s arms and rolls off him, tugging at Nagisa’s wrists as he does so to arrange them the way he wants. They end up with Nagisa lying wrapped in his blanket with Rei pressed up against his back, spooning him, arms holding Nagisa tight to his chest. “Is this good?” Rei asks, and leans over so he can kiss Nagisa’s cheek. Nagisa burrows deeper into his blanket and pushes close to Rei, twining their legs together, material of pajamas against swimsuit. He grabs one of Rei’s hands and kisses his fingertips, very slowly before being forced to stop by a yawn. Rei laughs gently and Nagisa huffs, but threads their fingers together a second later. “This is good,” he whispers, and lies there in Rei’s arms. He can feel his body getting heavier and heavier, like all the tearful, restless nights he’s had lately are cashing in all at once, now he’s safe beside Rei once more. “I always wanted to hold your hand,” he admits. “I thought about it all the time.”

“Me too,” Rei says, and tucks his chin on top of Nagisa’s head.

Nagisa hums and closes his eyes, tightening his fingers just to feel Rei’s against his own. “I think I might fall asleep.”

“That’s okay.”

“Will you still be here when I wake up?”

“Yes.” Rei pulls away for a moment to take his glasses off, and reaches to set them on top of the books on the nightstand before returning to his original position.

“I love you,” Nagisa says softly as Rei shuffles to get as close as possible.

“I love you back.”

Nagisa smiles and kisses the back of Rei’s hand one last time before he settles down. Part of him wants to stay awake all night, not to waste a single waking moment in these last few hours they have together. But  another part of him remembers just how badly he’d wished to fall asleep with Rei truly holding him, their hands truly held together. Maybe it would be okay, to get to fall asleep with Rei beside him in this once chance they have.

“Rei-chan?” he whispers, but Rei doesn’t answer. There’s only the sound of his breathing. Completely unnecessary but a habit Rei can’t kick. In and out. In and out. In and back out again. Nagisa remembers listening to Haru and Ren’s breathing, and how he tried to imagine it was Rei’s. This is something else he needs to remember. Remember, and press deep inside himself, so the memory is always there. Mold the rhythm of Rei’s breathing around his heart, so with every heartbeat he can remember how it feels now, to be held so safe in Rei’s arms exactly where he’s meant to be. So with every heartbeat, he remembers Rei, and even if every other piece of Rei is gone, the memory of him will always be alive.

“I won’t forget you,” Nagisa murmurs, and closes his eyes, times his breathing to match Rei’s perfectly. And so he falls asleep, with Rei’s hand held safe in his own, this one last time.

 

***

“Nagisa.” It’s Rei’s soft voice that wakes him, and he opens his eyes blearily. He turns over to see Rei, right there sitting up in the bed, lit up with dawn light filtering through the window shade. He’s got his glasses back on, and is staring down at him with an almost serene expression.

“Mmph.” Nagisa flops an arm over and wraps it around Rei’s waist, closes his eyes, and refuses to move, no matter how many times Rei calls his name. Finally, he hears Rei sigh fondly, and Rei moves in his arms until he lies beside Nagisa once more.

“Nagisa.” A kiss to his cheek. And then his nose.

“No,” Nagisa mumbles. “It’s still night.” He grabs onto Rei’s shoulder with his free arm as well so that when Rei sits up again, he ends up sitting on the bed with Nagisa sprawled messy across his lap. Like an anchor. Rei can’t go. Not yet.

Rei doesn’t move for a moment, and then his fingers trail down Nagisa’s cheek. “I have to go,” he whispers.

“But I still need you,” Nagisa whispers, and hides his face in Rei’s chest. “I need you,” he repeats, the haze of sleep coloring his thoughts. All he can think is to hold onto Rei and somehow stop him from disappearing. “Don’t leave me.”

Rei can pretend to be strong, but he breaks then. Nagisa can hear it in the way Rei’s breath is strangled in his throat. Rei’s trembling arms come around and pull Nagisa properly into his lap, still dragging half the duvet with him. He grasps Nagisa’s head tight and holds him with his other hand clutching at Nagisa’s back. Nagisa can feel the way Rei shudders with each breath, how every inhale is frantic and it’s like Rei is drowning beside him all over again. And maybe there’s nothing Nagisa can do to save him this time either. Maybe all he can do is this.

Nagisa turns his head and lifts one hand to Rei’s face, fingertips just touching upon wet cheeks. “I love you,” he whispers. Rei’s lip is going white where he’s biting into it to keep his mouth shut, but the sob escapes then, and his eyes are red beneath the glare of his glasses, even in the early morning darkness.

“I don’t want to go,” he admits, and tries to smile down at Nagisa, but his lip is trembling too much to manage it.

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa grabs Rei’s shoulders so he can sit up and kiss Rei, kiss him and try to calm that trembling. “Rei-chan, Rei-chan, Rei-chan…”

“I’m going to watch over you,” Rei whispers, and takes Nagisa’s face in both hands, tilts their foreheads together, and closes his eyes as if this is some kind of benediction. “I decided. I thought about it. I’m not going to go into the afterlife. I’m going to stay in the Netherworld. I’m going to watch over you. And wait for you.”

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa breathes, but Rei just shakes his head minutely and continues.

“I’m going to watch over you, and watch you live your amazing colorful life.” He presses a hard kiss to Nagisa’s lips and pulls away, still holding his jaw with such gentle hands. He stares straight into Nagisa’s eyes, that heartbreaking look once more and Nagisa can feel the first tears escape his own eyes. “No matter what happens and no matter how hard things get, know that I am always there, even if I can’t be with you, and I always love you. Always.” Rei squeezes his eyes shut and shudders, and Nagisa slides his arms under and around Rei’s arms, dragging their bodies closer. He buries his head at the junction of Rei’s neck and shoulder and kisses there before simply hiding his face, trying to comprehend just how huge that promise is. Just how much Rei is willing to give for him. It’s impossible. It’s completely impossible. He can feel himself start to shake as well as he holds Rei tight.

“A-and I know you’ll meet other people, and that’s okay. I said I didn’t want to...want to hold you back and I meant it,” Rei whispers, and Nagisa can feel the tears dripping from Rei’s chin onto his arm, soaking into his pajamas. “I want you to live the happiest life you can, Nagisa.” Rei’s hands grapple to find Nagisa’s face once more, pulling them apart as Rei sniffs and his thumbs stroke beneath Nagisa’s eyes, catching the tears there. So many tears. He’s spent more tears over Rei than anything else in his life. Maybe that’s okay though. It’s been worth it. “Do you understand?” Rei asks, and Nagisa nods, repositioning his hands to cup the back of Rei’s neck.

“I understand, but…” He replaces his nodding with shaking his head. “But that’s not fair, Rei-chan! You shouldn’t…I’m not…”

Rei looks momentarily horrified. “Unless...unless you don’t want me to…”

“No, no…” Nagisa whispers, and kisses Rei, kisses that terrified look off his face. “I just...you’d wait for me? For so long? I thought the Netherworld was nothing. Why would you…?”

Why would Rei give up so much? But of course Nagisa already knows the answer.

Rei sniffs and wipes at his eyes with one hand. “Well, there’s a lot I want to understand. About the Netherworld. About the rules of haunting. I want to talk to spirits before they leave...have them conduct experiments while they’re here...there’s so much I can find out and I don’t think anyone has bothered before and I want to know how it works. I want to know how it works so I can help…so I can help other people like me, who aren’t sure what to do…”

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa kisses him again, longer this time, deeper.

“And...and…” Rei breathes in the space between their lips, “I’ll always be there for you. Even though you can’t see me, or hear me, or touch me, I’ll be there. I’ll watch over you, and even when it feels like you’re all alone, you can know that I’m there...and that I’ll always love you and support you no matter what happens…” Rei’s the one to initiate the kiss this time, pulling Nagisa in and cupping the back of his head with careful fingers. Nagisa moves slowly to straddle him without breaking contact and kisses back, gentle and giving, one hand in Rei’s hair and the other stroking along his shoulder. Their noses bump together and Nagisa opens his eyes, keeps their faces pressed together as Rei breathes in as a shudder and continues. “Please live a wonderful life,” he murmurs, opening his eyes as well so their gazes lock. “The most wonderful life you can imagine.” He slides both hands to the small of Nagisa’s back. “Live for both of us.”

“Rei-chan,” Nagisa whispers, but Rei isn’t done. He balls his hands up and pulls Nagisa even closer, head sliding down until he drops it onto Nagisa’s shoulder. Shaking.

Nagisa hushes him and pets his hair, holds him tight and rocks back and forth. “Shh, shh, it’s okay, it’s okay…”

Rei laughs a little, a small expulsion of breath, and lifts his head, eyes closed and leaking tears as he rests their foreheads together once more. He continues so soft Nagisa can barely hear him. “Explore the world and...and have amazing adventures and stories so impossible no one will believe. Fall in love with people who will...who will love you just as m-much as you deserve a-a-and…” Rei falters, voice stuttering, and Nagisa grabs his face, keeping them nose to nose as Rei opens his eyes and smiles weakly at him. “And...and if at the end of your life, you decide that I’m still the one that you want, I’ll be right there, waiting for you in the Netherworld.”

“Rei-chan…” Nagisa sniffs and presses a kiss to Rei’s forehead, and then slowly slides down until they’re eye to eye once more. Rei blinks away tears and stares at Nagisa, and Nagisa smiles and brushes Rei’s hair back from his face.

“I’ll be there,” he promises, trying to put everything he can into that promise, and Rei lets out a little hiccup of a sob. “I’ll be there, Rei-chan. No matter what sort of life I have, or if I fall in love with someone else, I’ll still come find you. Because that’s what we do, right?” He smiles again and bumps their noses together. “That’s what we do. We find each other. We always find each other.”

“Again and again and again,” Rei whispers, and smiles as the tension eases from his body. Kisses Nagisa soft and careful as his fingers caress the back of Nagisa’s head. His glasses slip down his nose and dig a little into Nagisa’s skin, but Nagisa can’t care. He keeps one hand cupped around the back of Rei’s neck and uses the other to hold Rei’s face, fingers mapping out the shape of his chin, his lips, the curve of his nose. To memorize Rei’s face. To memorize the feel of Rei’s kisses. To memorize everything he can and keep it with him for the rest of his life. Finally, Rei pulls away, only to dive back in for another shorter kiss. “I have to go now,” he says, pushing a hand against his stomach. “It’s starting to hurt.”

Nagisa nods. He doesn’t want Rei in any more pain because of him. “Okay,” he whispers, and slides off Rei’s lap. Rei stands up off the bed and stares toward the window, and, through him, Nagisa can just make out the dawn growing brighter and brighter outside the window. It almost looks like Rei is glowing from the inside. An angel. Always watching over him.

Nagisa reaches one hand out, almost convinced his fingers will go straight through Rei once more, but no. He’s still there. He’s still real. Rei turns at his touch and crouches by the bed as Nagisa sits at the edge. “Are you just going to disappear?” Nagisa asks softly.

“I’m not sure what it looks like,” Rei admits, pushing his glasses back up his nose. “Maybe that’s one of the things I can conduct studies on.”

Nagisa laughs a little, and wipes the tears where they’re collecting along his chin. “You can tell me about it when I get there.”

Rei blinks, and then smiles that heart-breaking smile. “I’ll compile all my data for you.”

“Deal,” Nagisa holds out a hand, and Rei just laughs before grabbing it and shaking.

“Deal.”

Nagisa uses that grip to pull Rei back towards him once more, so Nagisa can get a grip around those swim goggles and tug gently on them until Rei gets the hint and kisses him again, sitting up on his knees on the floor while Nagisa almost falls off the edge of the bed. Rei laughs and pushes Nagisa’s shoulders to keep him from falling right into Rei’s lap and when they kiss again both of them are smiling into it. “I’m going to go now,” Rei whispers when they break apart. He stands up, hands never leaving Nagisa’s shoulders. Nagisa tilts his head to one side to feel Rei’s hand against his cheek and Rei captures his face with both hands seconds later, kissing him again. Nagisa probably tastes gross, he realizes, nothing like bubblegum toothpaste, but Rei doesn’t seem to care. He closes his eyes and sighs when Rei breaks their lips apart. Smiles a little when Rei kisses each of his eyelids, touch light like a butterfly’s.

“I don’t want to watch,” Nagisa admits, fingers dancing around where Rei’s slender hands hold his face so gently. He doesn’t. Watching Rei disappear would be too final. This isn’t final. Rei will be waiting for him. Rei will be waiting for him—wonderful, impossible, ridiculous Rei, waiting for him at the end.

“I promised I’d say goodbye,” Rei says softly. “So, I guess...good—”

“No!” Nagisa yelps, and opens his eyes, just to stare into Rei’s own startled ones. His hands hold tight to Rei’s on his face. “No…” he says again, and leans forward to kiss Rei again. “You don’t have to say goodbye,” he whispers when he pulls away, squeezing his eyes shut. “It’s not goodbye. It’s not.”

“Then what should I say?”

Nagisa sniffs, and pushes their foreheads together. “This is a see-you-later.”

Rei lets out a wrecked sound before Nagisa feels his lips once more, hands clutching at his face with a new desperation and he leans into it, trying to commit every single detail to memory. Rei gets to his feet and pushes Nagisa back into the mattress, pressing him down into the blankets and pillows, trapping him there. “I love you,” he whispers, hands on Nagisa’s face, his shoulders, his arms, his stomach, back to his hair, stroking beneath his eyes. “I love you, I love you, I love you…”

“I love you too,” Nagisa gasps, “I love you too…” He pulls Rei to him and simply holds him, chin tucked over Rei’s shoulder so he can speak right into Rei’s ear. “I love you so much, I promise...I promise I’ll live for both of us...I promise...I promise to find you.” He kisses Rei’s ear as Rei shakes against him. “You always come back to me.”

He doesn’t let go as Rei stands up, and ends up sitting back on the edge of the bed. He opens his eyes once more as Rei slowly pulls out of his grip. Rei’s glasses are askew, his hair a mess, his eyes pink from crying and Nagisa blinks and makes a clicking sound.

“Snapshot,” he says weakly when Rei stares at him blankly, and then Rei is kissing him again, laughing softly.

“You’re ridiculous.”

“Mmm…” Nagisa hums, shrugging one shoulder and letting his eyes close. Rei’s hands find his face once more, gentle fingers against his jaw as Rei breaks the kiss and tilts their foreheads together. He truly, really has to leave.

“It’s okay now, Rei-chan,” Nagisa whispers. “It’s okay to leave now.”

“Are you sure?” Thumbs, sliding cool against his cheeks.

He’s sure. “I love you,” he says, one last time.

A pause. And then: “I’ll see you later,” Rei breathes in reply, and Nagisa gasps, like he’ll be able to inhale those final words, keep the taste of them forever. The last words he’ll hear Rei say. “I’ll see you later,” he repeats in a choked whisper, and Rei laughs once more, very softly, and strokes his thumbs beneath Nagisa’s eyes, touch beginning to grow fainter.

Part of him wants to open his eyes, just to see Rei one last time. But no. He doesn’t want to watch Rei disappearing. He doesn’t want that to be his last memory. Let him keep cool kisses and soft hands, the sound of Rei’s breathing and that special smile just for him. Let him keep Rei’s love, warm in his stomach and a constant reminder. And so Nagisa keeps his eyes shut tight as he feels the hands on his face turn ethereal, the press against his forehead disappearing. Fading.

Rei is leaving him again, but it will be okay this time.

It’s not forever.

They always find each other.

Nagisa waits until the last lingering touch is lost, and opens his eyes slowly. Rei is gone. Not a trace left of him, like he was never here at all. But Nagisa’s fingertips still spark with the feel of Rei’s skin beneath his hands, and the warmth in his chest doesn’t falter. The knowledge that Rei _was_ here and he _was_ real. Not a product of Nagisa’s imagination, but a boy who lived and died and loved and was loved right back, just as much. Even if he can never tell another soul, that doesn’t change anything that happened.

He stands as he touches fingers to kiss-swollen lips, and smiles as he thinks how he’ll have to lie his way past three nosy sisters and Kou on top of it.

He plants his feet on the floor right where Rei had been, just moments before, and inhales deeply.

Over six months ago now, Rei Ryugazaki died in his arms.

This might be the first time he’s remembered that and felt alright.

Rei might belong to Nagisa’s past, but he won’t ever stop being a part of Nagisa’s present. He doesn’t even need to know that Rei is watching over him to feel that glow in his chest, burning along with that promise to live a wondrous fantastical life. To live for both of them.

He walks over to the window where light is sneaking through the blinds.

Rei was his past, is his present. And Rei will be a part of his future.

He tugs the cord and opens the blinds.

The light floods the room, dawn breaking over the horizon and bathing everything in the bright white of fallen snow. Chasing away the vestiges of night, and the final faint light of fading stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos/comments/recs/messages are always appreciated! I've especially loved the song suggestions I've gotten over the course of publishing this fic. This chapter brought to you by Saturn by Sleeping At Last which is kinda actually perfect ~  
> Tune in next Monday for the very last chapter! Thank you for reading!


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's encouraged me in this project. This was supposed to be a short little fic and it turned into a monster! I hope you enjoy the final chapter.  
> You can always find me at my tumblr (pollyperks) for updates on other ficlets I'll be writing/general talkage if you would like ~  
> edit: user shoyo made a spotify playlist for this fic!! i thought i'd link to it here because it's great: https://play.spotify.com/user/1185320542/playlist/6oONSU2RRBdW2lh9QjmE4Q

The summer after Rei leaves, the Iwatobi swim team places fourth at Nationals. Nagisa can hear the screams of his sisters from the bleachers, along with Kou and Hana and Ama-chan sensei, and he cries along with the rest of his teammates. He hugs them tight and smiles through his tears, and while a part of him still wishes that it was Rei there instead, every day that passes he’s been learning how to accept that will never happen, but that it’s still alright. That _he’s_ still alright.

He lies in bed that night and hopes Rei is listening. “We did it, Rei-chan. And since I’m living for you, that means you did it too. How did it feel?”

Of course, Rei never answers when Nagisa talks to him like this, but he likes to think Rei can hear.

It’s been over a year now since Rei died. He brought flowers to the Ryugazaki shrine on the anniversary. Hydrangeas. And after that, he stopped by the family’s apartment and handed over the little box.

“I’m sorry I kept them so long,” he told them as Rei’s mother looked down at the broken glasses. “I thought I needed them to remember him, but it’s okay now. I think you should have them. I’m sorry they’re broken though. Someone must have stepped on them or something.”  

Rei’s mom looked at him for five seconds in silence before enveloping him in a hug. “Thank you,” she whispered, and Nagisa knew he did the right thing. He has the memory of Rei’s touch and his love. He stole extra time away from death that Rei’s family never had. It would be unfair to keep the glasses to himself as well.

And on the night they place at Nationals, Nagisa bundles himself up in his blankets and hugs a pillow to his chest. “I’m really happy, Rei-chan,” he says. “Even if Mako-chan and Haru-chan and Rin-chan won’t be here next year. That’s okay. Kou-chan and I will do it. We’re gonna make the swim team great, so it’s there for years and years after all of us are gone. I think you’d like that.”

He smiles and rubs his face into the pillow before yawning. He’s exhausted. But it’s okay to fall asleep—Rei’s weird enough to not mind watching him sleep. He lifts his head briefly. “I love you, Rei-chan,” he says, as loud as he dares, before thumping his face back into the pillow. He stares at the tiny stitching of the seam on the pillowcase and raises one hand to pick at it. “I love you, Rei-chan,” he repeats in a whisper. Just in case Rei is listening. It’s always worth saying one more time.

 

* * *

 

The Matsuoka father decides to depart for the afterlife shortly after Kou’s wedding. They watch the ceremony together, sitting side by side. Rei has gotten just as good now at conjuring up images of the living world, maybe even better than Matsuoka. He’s had to. Nagisa got into the habit of leaving him notes once he started living on his own, tucked under a book on his nightstand or placed on the pillow on the side of the bed Rei always slept on. It takes a lot of concentration to zoom in close enough to read, but it’s worth it. Rei knows Nagisa talks out loud to him whenever possible, but he’s not always watching. Nagisa leaves his notes out for days at a time for Rei to see, which becomes a pretty effective means of communication once Rei realizes what Nagisa is actually doing. It’s usually just a summary of how Nagisa’s week is going, or what he learned when he talked to Haru and Makoto on the phone the other day. And then telling Rei he loves him. He never leaves that part out, and they may be in entirely other worlds but Nagisa still has the ability to make Rei blush with happiness. When Nagisa and Kou decide to rent an apartment together to save money, the notes have to stop, but Nagisa still talks to him when Kou isn’t around. It means Rei has to keep more of a watch out for Nagisa rather than conducting his studies, but it’s alright. He doesn’t mind.

He and Matsuoka had watched Haru and Rin at the Olympics, naturally, seen them place second and third respectively, and Rin’s father glowed with pride, still does whenever Rei brings it up. Kou got engaged not two months later, but the wedding is put off a bit through financial strains and a few legal technicalities. Her name is Sahi. She’s a bodybuilder Kou had met at one of the gyms Rin frequented. Kou’s still sharing an apartment with Nagisa when she gets engaged and the two of them create huge dreams between them of just how lavish the wedding will be, bouncing around and practically shouting all the things they’ll need to buy and feeding off each other’s energy until they’re both exhausted and flopped out on the floor.

In the end, though, it’s a very simple wedding. Not too many people—mostly close friends and relatives. Rin walks Kou down the aisle, already teary-eyed himself. She looks so beautiful, smiling so hard her face has to hurt, and Nagisa is smiling just as hard, dressed in white as a (best) man of honor.

Rei pretends not to see how hard Kou’s father is crying.

“I don’t think they need my guidance anymore,” Matsuoka tells Rei later. “I think it’s time for me to see what the afterlife is like. Will you be alright?”

Rei nods and smiles. “I have plenty to do.” And he does. Asides from checking up on Nagisa, he’s been conducting all sorts of studies with the souls who come through the Netherworld. Not that he won’t miss Matsuoka. They’ve been together in the Netherworld for close to ten years living-time now. But if it’s time for him to move on, he should move on. And Rei knows the importance of moving on.

“I’ll keep an eye on Kou-san and Rin-san for you,” he says.

The hug the Matsuoka father gives him could have suffocated him were he still alive, but he hugs back just as tight, eyes squeezed shut. A gentle yet calloused hand is placed along the side of his face. “Take care of yourself,” Matsuoka says, and then turns to walk away into the white mists. Rei watches him go for as long as he can see the shadow moving amongst the nothing.

“Goodbye Matsuoka-san,” he says at last, long after the figure has disappeared. He remains staring in that direction for a long time.

 

* * *

 

It only takes a day to get Kou’s stuff packed up. She and Sahi have a place ready to rent back in Iwatobi, which is slightly famous now as the source of Japan’s prize swimmers. Nagisa will be staying in the apartment in Osaka, but not for long. He’s worked a couple of jobs since graduating university—a waiter, a secretary for a publishing house, a sales associate at a shoe store—but nothing had felt right. Nothing really felt like him. And then Chiasa had suggested the Peace Corps. He leaves in three months.

“Do you like that, Rei-chan?” he asks the night after he gets back from helping Kou move. “Travelling and helping people. It seems like a good kind of life, doesn’t it?” He nods to himself. “Yeah. That’s a good kind of life.”

He doesn’t get much time to talk to Rei in those two years. Doesn’t have much time alone at all that he could have used to talk to him. And then he falls in love for the second time.

Oliver is tall, but that’s where any physical semblance to Rei ends. He’s got blond hair just like Nagisa, and has about a million pictures of his dog Nancy on his phone. Nagisa is sure their relationship will remain platonic, until the night Oliver asks if he can kiss him. And Nagisa says yes.

He cries about it in bed that night. He knows Rei wants him to experience all of life, had said it was okay to fall in love with other people, but part of him is afraid he’ll forget the feel of Rei’s lips on his, the touch of his hands. Afraid that Rei will somehow become less important to him, will be forgotten. “I’m sorry, Rei-chan,” he whispers into his pillow. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.”

He avoids Oliver for a few days after that, until Oliver has to ask if he did something wrong. So Nagisa tells him a little bit of the truth. That the boy he loved (loves) had died, and Nagisa doesn’t ever want to forget him. That it feels like betrayal, to be with someone else now. Rei would probably be mad at him for thinking like that—because Rei loves him so much he would give anything to make Nagisa happy, he knows, he knows—but Oliver says it’s alright. They can take it slow, or they can not take it at all.

“He’s very kind, Rei-chan,” Nagisa says, when he has moment alone, sitting against a tree with a bottle of water. “And it doesn’t mean I’m forgetting you. Or that I love you any less. You know that, right? I hope you know that.” He thinks Rei is watching. He thinks, but he can’t be sure. It’s a subtle feeling of being watched. Not in the creepy way, but the way Rei had watched him like he was everything, the way that had filled Nagisa with that strange warmth. He notices it from time to time and while part of him thinks this is just his imagination, the other part of him doesn’t want to let go of that reassurance that Rei is still there, is still waiting.

“I love you, Rei-chan,” he says again. “No matter what happens next, I love you.”

So Nagisa and Oliver take it slow. At first. It sort of snowballs. When their time in the Peace Corps is over, Oliver invites Nagisa to come back to France with him. He has his own apartment, and reclaims Nancy the dog from the sister who’d been looking after her. Living in France and having to rely on his rudimentary language skills is a lot more difficult than talking to Oliver one on one, but Nagisa manages. He gets a job with an insurance agency, and for eight whole years, they are happy. Oliver loves him, and he loves Oliver back, and he realizes that he just had to create more love inside himself, not take any away from Rei.

But eight years in one city, in one place, has Nagisa itching to travel, and when Oliver asks him to marry him, it’s almost like a sign. He isn’t meant to be tied down like this, not with a whole world out there to explore. He takes a job with a travel agency, and within two weeks has a flight to Manilla. “Thank you for the happiness,” he tells Oliver in the best French he can manage, and cries as he kisses him goodbye, wishing there was some way he could leave without breaking Oliver’s heart.

He hates to be the one who leaves.

He keeps his eyes open this time as he rides the taxi cab away and waves until Oliver is out of sight. A true goodbye this time, as he watches Oliver disappear.

* * *

 

Rei has yet to encounter a spirit who was able to touch the living. A girl in her twenties named Yui is really interested when he approaches her on possible experiments while she takes care of her own unfinished business, and, once back among the living, she is much quicker than Rei was to be able to knock stuff over and even carry things around. However, she is never able to touch her father, even though he can see and hear her just fine. But for her, it’s enough to assure him that she’ll be okay. And that she’ll be especially okay after she goes and visits her boyfriend one last time. She doesn’t tell her father the complete story there. Probably doesn’t want him to get involved, seeing as it was the boyfriend who killed her.

Rei is afraid she’s actually going to kill _him_ , the night she visits the man who murdered her. It’s almost a classic horror movie, the type Nagisa had rented for them to watch, with Yui throwing stuff around and writing on the walls. Using a marker, not blood, but a marker hovering in the air and scrawling on the walls that the man is going to pay for what he did is terrifying enough. And even if she can’t touch him directly, it’s quite enough for her to be able to swing a chair into his face and hold a kitchen knife to his throat. Much, much more talented than Rei had been at manipulating objects. At the last second, she presses with the knife just hard enough to leave a scar of blood across his neck and pulls away, scribbling on the wall for him to turn himself in, or she’d be back for him. He runs straight out the door to the nearest police station.

“How did you _do_ that?” Rei asks when she arrives back in the Netherworld, still a little teary from saying a final goodbye to her father.

“I just needed to. And then it became easy.” She shrugs. Maybe some of those ghost stories Rei had scoffed at have some truth to them.

Rei has her recount as much of her experience as she can to him. It’s a little difficult, trying to compile all this information without any way to write it down, but he’s doing pretty well. Yui leaves for the afterlife shortly after, following that tether in her belly that pulls her onward. It’s a pull Rei lives with constantly, not painful, but simply present. Always there to remind him that the afterlife is waiting.

He looks in on Nagisa after Yui leaves. He has no idea where Nagisa is this time, but he never has any trouble finding him. He simply wishes to see him and there he is, painted in brilliant color against white mists. It looks warm where he is, at least, and Nagisa is walking along a beach with a gigantic sunhat on. He looks a little ridiculous, like a mushroom, but it suits him.

He wonders if Nagisa remembers walking along the beach in Iwatobi with him. He hopes so.

He watches Nagisa most of the day. While Nagisa was living with Oliver he tried not to do that. He didn’t want to accidentally look in on something he shouldn’t have. He had liked Oliver though. He was kind. And he loved Nagisa. Rei could tell from the way Oliver would look at him when Nagisa wasn’t paying attention. The exact same way he himself had looked at Nagisa, years ago now. In those years, Nagisa has changed. He’s still pretty short, but maybe would have become leaner as he aged if not for the continued love of sweets. His hair is longer than he kept it in high school, to the point he can wear it back in a ponytail when he wants, and permanent laugh lines have started to appear on his tanned face. His freckles show up more now. His fashion sense has toned down a little, barring this particular hat, but even if he doesn’t mix contrasting patterns anymore, his wardrobe is still pretty blinding in how bright it is. Perhaps what’s changed the most is the way he presents himself. He’s learned to keep his voice softer, to resist the urge to tackle people as a greeting. He’s gotten more witty, more sly with his humor, for better or for worse for the person on the receiving end. His laugh is the same though, loud and joyous and it makes Rei smile just to hear it each time.

Nagisa is never in one place for long. He rents cheap apartments or stays in motels, all as a part of his job as he makes arrangements with fancy hotels, tourist attractions, and nice restaurants for his company to later send customers through. He’s alone, for the most part, which is something that hasn’t happened since he joined the Peace Corps. It means he starts leaving notes for Rei to find again. It means that that night, after touring the beach and local attractions, Nagisa lies in bed and stares straight up at the ceiling. Rei adjusts his view so he can look down at Nagisa, pretend Nagisa is looking at him instead of crumbling plaster.

“You were watching me today, weren’t you, Rei-chan?” Nagisa asks after a moment of silence, and Rei feels something in his chest speed into hyperdrive. Nagisa smiles, and Rei knows that smile is meant for him. “It’s been a while, but I know that feeling. I know it was you.”

“Yeah,” Rei whispers, and reaches out to brush fingers across the image of Nagisa’s face. He’s not sure what kind of feeling Nagisa is talking about, but that’s alright. “It was me.”

“I hope you aren’t too bored in the Netherworld,” Nagisa says. “I hope you’re getting lots of research done so you can tell me all about it when I get there.”

“I am,” Rei tells him.

“I bet you are,” Nagisa says, and smiles again, folding his arms beneath his head. “Lots and lots.” He lies there for a moment, and then sticks out his bottom lip. “It’s hard to have a conversation when you can’t talk back.”

Rei laughs, and puts his hand over his mouth, trying to ignore the itching in his nose. It’s been so long since they’ve been able to talk directly like this.

“I’m going home in three weeks,” Nagisa says at last, because he can always find _something_ to talk about. “I’m going to see everyone again. It’s been a while.”

Rei nods. It has. The last time their friends were all together was for Kou’s wedding. He’s kept up with all of them too, in his spare time. They all seem happy, which is what he cares most about. And of course with his family too. Katsumi has gotten married and has two kids so far. His dad is thinking of retiring to write a book soon. Watching his family makes Rei’s chest ache, and not the same bittersweet way it does when he watches Nagisa. His family doesn’t know he’s watching over them. They don’t know he sees the tears his parents still shed on his birthday every single year. He wishes he could let them know that he’s here, he’s happy, he’s waiting, but of course those are just wishes that can’t ever come true.

“I love you, Rei-chan,” Nagisa says, and snaps Rei out of his melancholy. “I haven’t said that much lately, I know. But I still do. And I still remember this…” Nagisa touches fingers to his lips. “I remember how it felt. So I’m not forgetting you. Not at all.”

Rei nods, and bites his lip, and gives up and holds a hand over his eyes as the tears well up. Not forgotten. Not forgotten. Not forgotten.

 

* * *

 

He falls in love for the third time in a true whirlwind romance that lasts about a month and is gone in an instant. His name is Sam, and they meet when Nagisa is visiting Nova Scotia. It’s a freezing winter, but warm in Sam’s cabin which is filled with hard drinks and wild sex and not much in the way of food supply. They live off bologna, mostly. And both of them know it won’t last which is probably why everything happens as fast as it does, and only after he’s left does Nagisa realize he feels the same warmth in his chest when he remembers Sam in his cabin as he does when he thinks about Oliver or Rei. So he never does tell Sam he loves him, and he hopes to whatever deity might be listening that Rei didn’t look on him this past month. Kou’s the only one he tells about Sam. She’s the only one he tells about a lot of things. Apparently surviving your early twenties together means you’re bonded for life. They video chat and she reacts with appropriate scandalized noises, and is confused when he insists it’s all over, because who in their right mind would walk away from a love with a rugged Canadian man with a heart of gold? “You could settle down, you know,” she says, and maybe it’s alright for her. Kou is happy, living on the shore with Sahi. They have quiet mornings and quiet walks downtown and a simple, quiet life while they begin looking into the adoption process. And that’s fine. But Nagisa doesn’t want to settle down, so maybe she just doesn’t understand. There’s still so much of the world he wants to see, so many people he’s still to meet. Just like Rei said. He wants to explore and have adventures and stories so impossible that no one will believe them. He wants to live an amazing, colorful life, and while for some maybe that means finding a quiet happiness in a quiet town, for him color is found in constant discovery, constant travel and constant new places. In languages he doesn’t know and people he has the chance to know. In seeing as much as he can while he can because he’s more learned than most in the need to treasure each and every moment that he has.

“I’d be bored,” he tells Kou. For the hundredth time he wonders if she would understand if he asked her to listen to him, to believe he’s not crazy, and then told her a ghost story. To explain that he’s living not just for himself, but Rei as well. To explain that every single day of his life is touched by the impossible, by the unbelievable, of the knowledge that the dead really do walk among the living, can see them, can talk to them, and can sometimes be seen and talked to as well. That he wonders all the time if there is a ghost riding in the empty train seat beside him, or if the woman buying groceries has a dead husband in tow making comments about how prices have gone up.

That he knows with every bit of his heart that Rei is waiting for him, is watching over him, is always there even when Nagisa feels abandoned by the rest of the world.

That would be too fantastical for her to believe, he thinks, and doesn’t bring it up.

He thinks about it later that night. About the people around him, and the secrets they might keep. Maybe everyone is like him, and have their own little miracles they can’t share with anyone because no one would ever believe. Maybe the world is filled with miracles, day after day, and he’s just blind to all but the one miracle that was his.

He likes the kind of world that could be like that.

* * *

 

A week on earth passes in about two hours Netherworld-time, though that’s approximate since Rei had to count out every second of every minute himself, and he still hasn’t figured out why he can watch events in the living world pass at regular speed if by rights they should be sped up. His mom ruffles his hair when she returns after her week’s stay and sits with him a while while he frowns and tries to think of reasons.

“Why don’t you stop thinking about it and show me Katsumi?” she asks at last when he doesn’t seem to be letting up, and Rei sighs deeply before bringing up an image of Katsumi’s family. Katsumi, his wife, and the three kids, ranging from thirteen down to four. Rei tries to keep frowning, but the happy smile on his brother’s face wears him down eventually.

“They’re cute,” he says at last, referring to his two nieces and one nephew, and his mom laughs a little before resting against his shoulder.

“How’s Dad?”

“He’ll be alright,” his mom says, settling into petting his hair like when he was a child. He’s a bit confused by her, to be honest. She’d died in the hospital after months fighting off an illness, and her body had been wasted. Here, in the Netherworld, she appears healthy. Rei hasn’t been keeping watch on any other souls that pass through, and of course he wouldn’t notice it on anyone but someone he knows, but he wonders how many he’s seen that have looked different from their dying selves.

“Mom,” he asks, “Are you...doing anything? To seem younger?”

Her eyes widen. “Younger? What do you mean?” Of course. It’s not like there are any mirrors for ghosts.

“You look younger,” Rei explains, reaching out and feeling her hair, with much less grey in it than he recalls. “Are you doing that on purpose?”

“No,” she says, and he files it away to be his next subject of inquiry, now he’s got the time frame thing sort of figured out.

So far, what he has learned is that spirits, regardless of whether someone can see them or not, have the ability to move objects, but that is very much connected to their emotional state and the size of the object. No ghost he has studied has left footprints where they walk or impressions where they sit on furniture, but that also means that they’ve been able to sit on chairs and walk down staircases. Things they were always used to being able to rely on, basically. As for moving objects, Yui was still the most skilled ghost he’s seen. No one has matched her and the ease with which she moved things around. And he’s learned that no ghost has been able to be seen by more than one person. Which Rei thinks is a little strange, seeing as a ghost could easily have unfinished business with more than one person, but so many of the rules of the Netherworld and ghostliness don’t make sense to him. He has learned that about fifteen percent of ghosts are able to be seen when they go back, which is more than he expected. The average time spent back among the living is two weeks. A ghost by the name of Akio breaks Rei’s record and spends ten months back before succumbing to the Netherworld’s pull. He’d been a new father, and had returned to his wife and two-month-old baby. The baby was able to see him. The wife could not, and couldn’t understand why her baby was always smiling over her shoulder.

After Rei’s mom passes on to the afterlife, he begins to question spirits as they come and realizes that many of them have reverted to looking much younger than when they died. It’s not something they do purposefully, so completely different from his desire to change into real clothing. Their souls simply come into the Netherworld looking different from their dying selves, and Rei has no idea why.

But that aside, he’s now facing the problem of being the lone source of knowledge, as far as he knows, in the entire Netherworld. He wants to spend time watching over Nagisa just as he promised, but instead he finds himself running around trying to greet each new arrival he can find so he can brief them on the rules and what to expect. And he knows he’s still missing so many people, people who must be just as confused and scared as he was, without anyone like the Matsuoka father to help them.

What he needs, he realizes, is to build a network.

The first person he finds is a girl, age eighteen, who died in a traffic accident. It’s funny how incredibly old he feels, Rei thinks, when he looks at her, teary-eyed and terrified. He sits her down and tells her it’s okay, that the pain is over and she has a chance to go home and say goodbye. He tells her that she might have some unfinished business she might not even know about, and that it can take time to figure out what to do. He tells her about the ability to move objects, and that it might even be possible to touch someone if her need is great enough. Her need never is great enough, though she is visible to her best friend, the one who’d been drunk and driven the car into a pole. She spends a few months down on earth, and Rei watches her when he can. He realizes that, given the circumstances of her death, it would have been pretty horrific for her soul to appear as she did when she died. Maybe there is something in this that makes sense.

When she comes back, he asks if she would mind staying in the Netherworld for just a little while, to help him in spreading information to new arrivals, letting them know the basics of returning and continuing on. She agrees. He asks a middle-aged man next if he’d be willing to help, and he agrees as well. And so the network is born, and begins to grow.

* * *

 

Nagisa prides himself on being the cool uncle. No competition that he always brings the best gifts back to Japan with him. From New Zealand and Portugal and Sweden and Egypt. All over the world. And he takes lots of pictures. He loves sitting with Chiasa’s kids and showing them all the pictures as he tells the stories that go along with them. Chiasa might roll her eyes at the most obvious elaborations, but he has photographic evidence that at least 99 percent of what he says is true. It’s always fun, coming home and getting to see her and the kids—the only nieces and nephews he has—and they always come screaming down the walk when they see him coming. That’s usually the order. Chiasa, then Ren, then Mizuki. All moved to different parts of the country now, but not too far to see their parents and each other on a regular basis. Nagisa is the odd one out there. Sometimes, if they happen to have corresponding schedules, he’ll meet up with Rin and Haru and Makoto in Tokyo. They’ll have drinks and Nagisa will make a big deal teasing the two Olympians until Rin tells him to shut up. And then it’s back to Iwatobi to see his parents, and then to see Kou.

He always makes sure to get something special for the girl Kou and her wife adopted. She’s a little thing, very short and skinny even for her age, and quiet. When he’s staying at their house it takes three days of slowly approaching her before she’ll even talk to him.

Her name is Rei. It had nothing to do with the adoption process, Kou tells him. Things just worked out that way. Nagisa takes it as a little sign of fate.

The first conversations he holds with Rei are whispered, with them on opposite sides of her bedroom door. He shows her his pictures and tells her his stories and once he gets a giggle, he pulls out the little bag and passes it to her, watches her unwrap the set of little wooden animals. “Do you like them?” he asks, and she nods before disappearing into her room to play.

The next time he comes, it’s with stuffed animals. “You like animals, right?” he asks, and she nods and holds the giant giraffe tight to her. Nagisa makes sure after that to send her postcards from wherever he is, always trying to find one with a picture of the local wildlife. In big cities it’s a little difficult, but he explains that pigeons don’t make very pretty postcards when he writes. When he sees Rei next, she defiantly shows him a picture of a pigeon she’d painted in class, and although it takes him a minute to make the connection without her saying anything, when he does get it it makes him laugh for almost five minutes straight.

“It’s beautiful,” he tells her, and she grins her gap-toothed smile.

He babysits that night while Kou and Sahi enjoy dinner and a movie. Rei cuddles up to him in her pajamas and he swathes her in blankets as they watch their own movie together. It’s when he tries to get her into bed that the problem starts. She clings to him and he almost lifts her right back out of bed when he stands. “What is it?” he asks, and she points to the closet. Nagisa stares at the dark shadow of it in the corner of the room. “Monsters?”

“Ghosts,” she whispers, and it’s one of those beautiful full-circle moments, the kind that leave him almost breathless.

Like he’s exactly where he’s meant to be.

Nagisa can’t say anything at all in reply for a long moment, but then he smiles as he gently unhooks her hands from around his neck and lies down next to her in her bed, which creaks beneath his weight until they both get settled. “Can I tell you a story?” he asks, voice going scratchy and breaking against his will.  

“About what?” she whispers in reply.

“It’s a ghost story,” he tells her, beginning to stroke her hair soothingly. “And why you don’t have to be afraid. Because I knew a ghost once, you know?”

He doesn’t need much light to make out her side-eye, quite developed for a six-year-old.

“Really?”

“Really.” He nods, and she perks up, rolling so she can prop her chin up on her hands. Nagisa smiles at her, the best he can manage, and lowers his voice conspiratorially. “Rei,” he says, “Would you like to hear a real actual ghost story?”

 

* * *

 

Rei gets approached by a young girl, maybe twelve, who asks him if he’s new and if she can help him with any questions he might have, and that’s when he knows the network is a success. The Netherworld is no longer an empty white wasteland, but is filled with spirits, looking to help each other, looking to stay and watch over those they love for just a little longer. Spirits passing along their information to anyone who needs it, and making sure they have done their part to help before heading into the afterlife.

Nagisa will be very proud, Rei thinks.

It’s an odd sensation, though, having stayed in the Netherworld for so long. Logically he knows that his time here hasn’t been much at all since time passes so differently, but he can’t help but feel so old when he compares himself to other spirits in their teen years. Maybe it’s all the time he spends watching the living, or maybe it’s something else entirely. His time may be short but his existence has been long, so long now. He can’t think of much else to research. Any questions he might have now he’s resigned to ‘because it just is’. The Netherworld thwarts any attempts he makes to truly understand it. He’ll have to be happy with what he has created—the network of spirits designed to help each other in dying, in returning, and in moving on. All he can do now is wait. So he does.

His mom had died young. His dad dies at a healthy age, passing away in his sleep, and Rei isn’t expecting it when he stumbles across another spirit giving his own dad the rundown. His dad doesn’t choose to return to the living world, but stays with Rei a while to keep him company, looking around his late fifties. This is when things are going to begin to be difficult, Rei knows. Even if he’s dead, he doesn’t want to see those he cares about die. It’s a bit of a funny position for him to take, he knows, but maybe his feelings regarding his oh-so-early death color his opinion. Dying is bad, even if what happens immediately afterwards isn’t. Losing everything and so many people you love all at once is bad, even if it all turns out alright in the end.

He’s still waiting for his ‘alright in the end’, after all.

But time continues, and so Rei begins to see familiar faces. His maths teacher. His neighbor two doors down. Nagisa’s mother. And, soon after, Nagisa’s father.

He wonders if he should say something to them. Introduce himself properly, since they never really met when he was alive. Mention that he haunted their house for half a year. No, bad idea.

So in the end he doesn’t say anything, just lets other spirits around them explain the concepts of returning to the living and unfinished business as he slinks away. He finds a quiet place and knows that by the time he brings Nagisa’s image up, the funerals will have already happened, but Nagisa is still puffy-eyed in the bed he’s taking up while staying with Chiasa. Rei’s fingers distort the image as he reaches for Nagisa’s face, and he’s so lonely for Nagisa it aches. He can watch Nagisa all he wants, but Nagisa can’t ever leave him notes anymore, since he moves around so quickly. And if Nagisa is still talking to him outloud, Rei is missing it.

He catches Nagisa having a brief fling with a Tokyo businessman and feels sick with sadness. He’s terrible, terrible, he knows, for feeling this way, when he sees Nagisa with that someone else he’s filled with so much jealousy he thinks he’s going to burst. Not because Nagisa is with someone else—he wants Nagisa to be happy, wants it more than anything else—but he’s so jealous that this man is still breathing, is still living, can still touch Nagisa’s skin and tangle fingers in his hair. Jealous that a random businessman gets those moments he was robbed of. He should have had a lifetime to spend by Nagisa’s side, but all he can from here is watch. Watch and wait and think of what ifs. So many what ifs.

He begins to worry. What if Nagisa has fallen out of love with him? What if years of being apart have convinced him it was only a foolish teenage love affair? What if, when he gets here, Nagisa can only smile sadly at Rei and say that he’s sorry, that he wants to spend the eternity of the afterlife with someone else? Rei knows that’s a possibility, had known it was a possibility from when he first made that promise to wait.

It’s just that now, when he really thinks about it, he doesn’t know what he’ll do if that happens.

So Rei starts taking a personal interest again in the spirits he meets, in order to distract himself from his more unpleasant thoughts. Watches them go back to the living and asks them to carry out small experiments. He discovers small little secrets. Ghosts that are visible to someone have a far easier time moving objects than ghosts who aren’t. Only five ghosts he’s studied so far who weren’t visible were able to actually pick objects up instead of just knocking them over. There is the one exceptional case of an older gentleman who manages to dislodge his life savings from the wall where he’d hidden it for his spouse and children to find, but that was after weeks and weeks of practice. He arrives back in the Netherworld beaming with pride, and Rei has to smile back. It’s easier, to throw himself back into this, into making sure the network is still functioning and equipping new arrivals with the basic information they need. He keeps himself busy. Keeps himself from obsessing over Nagisa and who else he might be falling in love with. It’s healthier, and it will make it easier. If his happy ending doesn’t pan out. If Nagisa doesn’t remember him in the end. It will make it easier.

 

* * *

 

 

Years ago, he’d thought he’d been able to sense when Rei was watching him. But he doesn’t feel that way often these days. He wonders if maybe he was just making it up when he was younger, giving himself a happy lie and pretending he could still talk with Rei just how they used to, knowing he was listening even if Nagisa couldn’t listen to Rei in return. He tries talking to Rei again, while he’s alone in his hotel in London, lying in bed with hands crossed on his chest and staring up at the ceiling. But where before it had felt he was truly talking with someone, now it feels like all his words fall into a void.

Maybe it’s just the gloomy London weather, but Nagisa feels so lonesome in that moment that tears gather in his eyes. Hadn’t Rei promised to watch over him? To be there even if he felt all alone? He feels all alone right now, so alone. How is he supposed to know Rei even bothers to watch over him anymore? Rei had been real, he had been real, and so had his promises, but maybe promises erode over time.

He closes his eyes with a deep sigh, letting himself sink into the mattress. Slowly, he raises a hand and touches fingers to his lips, and still he can remember the feel of Rei’s kisses. Desperate and longing and gentle and tinged with cold. No matter how many other kisses he may receive, it’s those ones that he can always still feel the lingering impressions of. A memory that will never erode over time. “I haven’t forgotten you,” Nagisa whispers. “I haven’t. I promise.”

He leaves a note out the next morning, because he’s in London for a few weeks and he’s instructed room service not to come. It’s a simple message. _Please don’t forget about me either._ But he never feels Rei watching.

Unable to shake his depression, he goes to visit home again, which means an automatic date night for Kou and Sahi. He sits up with Rei and tries to help her with her math homework, but it’s been years and she’s better at it than he ever was anyway. She’s also turning out to be quite perceptive, as he discovers while they sit and have tea together.

“Something’s wrong,” Rei says, and sets her cup down before propping her chin up on her hands and frowning a little. “There’s something wrong, isn’t there?”

He starts at her words and then laughs a little nervously. “Nothing’s wrong. Don’t worry about it.”

“You’re lying to me, Uncle Nagisa.”

He eyes her up. “You’re getting too smart for your own good.”

“I _am_ in high school.” She peers at him and then lowers her voice. “Is it...ghostly things?”

Nagisa sets his cup down as well and raises his eyebrows. “You still believe me on that?” She’d begged him to tell her the same story again and again as she grew up, but he’d always expected that one day she would grow out of it, not accept it the way she has.

“I think we just established I can tell when you’re lying.” She grins at him, and he shakes his head wearily before shooting her a smile.

“And if it were ghostly things?”

“Then I’m the only person in the world you can talk to about it.”

She brings up a valid point. Nagisa sighs, and then slowly slides his arms across the table until he faceplants onto it. “It’s simply hard to maintain a long-distance relationship when that distance involves actual life and death.”

“What do you mean?”

He raises his hands and then drops them again in defeat. “I mean...I mean that I never feel him, anymore. I used to...to feel like he was watching me, and I could talk to him and know he was listening, but it’s been so long since I’ve felt that way and I can’t tell if it’s because I just can’t sense it anymore or if he’s actually stopped watching.” He shouldn’t be unloading on a high schooler, but, like she pointed out, she’s the only person he has. “He promised he’d always be there,” he mumbles into the table.

She doesn’t say anything for a long time, and then there’s the quiet squeal of her chair being pushed back. “What was his family name, again?”

“Ryugazaki.”

“Ryugazaki Rei!” Nagisa jolts upright as Rei cups her hands around her mouth and shouts up towards the ceiling. “Ryugazaki Rei!”

“Rei, what are you doing?” Nagisa hisses, standing up so fast his chair falls over, but she dances away from him, still shouting.

“Rei! Rei! Look here! Look here! Uncle Nagisa misses you, you need to watch over him!”

“Rei, would you…”

“You promised! You promised!” She runs out of the kitchen and jumps up onto the sofa. “You gotta keep waiting! You gotta keep waiting!”

Nagisa puts a hand over his eyes and leans against the doorframe. “Rei...”

Next thing he knows, her fingers are prying his hand away from his face and dragging him towards the sofa. “Come on, come on,” she orders, and pulls him up onto the cushions, bouncing up and down.

“It’s going to break!”

“No it won’t! Help me call him! Help me call him!” Her cheeks are pink with excitement, her hair falling out of its braid. She grabs both of his hands and and starts jumping, closing her eyes and bellowing, “Uncle Rei! Uncle Rei! We’re right here! We’re right here, are you watching?”

Nagisa has to laugh, trying to muffle it the best he can. She opens her eyes to narrow them at him, and he starts to bounce a little up and down on the balls of his feet to make her happy.

“You have to help call, Uncle Nagisa! And he’s Uncle Rei, okay?” She manages to be even louder this time and Nagisa is afraid the neighbors are going to burst in looking for a murderer. “Uncle Rei! Uncle Rei! Uncle Nagisa misses you! You promised! _Uncle Nagisa you have to he_ —”

He screws up his eyes and starts to bounce in earnest, gripping her hands tight in his. “You promised! You promised me, Rei-chan! Wait for me! You have to wait for me, okay? I haven’t forgotten you! I won’t ever forget you, so don’t you forget me!” He takes a deep breath in. “We’re gonna see each other again, right? That’s why we didn’t say goodbye!”

Rei picks up on that one, jumping higher and screaming with abandon. “You didn’t say goodbye! You didn’t say goodbye, Uncle Rei! You didn’t say goodbye, you didn’t say goodbye, you didn’t...don’t have a heart attack, Uncle Nagisa.”

“I won’t, I just…” He has to sit down to catch his breath. And laughs again, wiping at his forehead. Rei plops down next to him.

“Do you think that helped?”

“I’m not sure. It was loud enough to wake the dead, so maybe.” He frowns and reaches out to tuck a piece of wayward hair behind her ear. “You’re a mess.”

She rolls her eyes. “Do you feel better?”

He has to take a second to think about it. “Yeah, I think I do.” He grins and ruffles his hand in her hair, completely destroying her braid as she squeals. “Your moms will kill me if you’re not in bed by the time they get back.”

“I’m going, I’m going…” She stands and starts towards the hallway, but spins around before she can disappear around the corner. “That was always my favorite story, you know? I really think it should have a happy ending.”

And then she’s gone, skipping away down the hallway.

****  
  


* * *

 

He’s not quite sure what leads to him finding a quiet place and pulling up an image of Nagisa. Loneliness, perhaps, though he’s not sure if watching Nagisa will make him feel better or not. But when he looks, Nagisa is asleep in yet another strange bed. Rei smiles at how Nagisa has bundled up all the blankets, just like he always used to, and then pans out to see where Nagisa is. Ah. Kou’s house. So it’s not just another strange bed. Kou and Sahi are still awake, in their own bedroom, and Rei makes sure to get out of there quickly before they start getting ready for bed. Their daughter is asleep in her own room, curled up around a stuffed giraffe. She older now, way older. Rei’s surprised. Has he really missed so much?

He goes back to Nagisa, catches the lines that have turned permanent on his face, the way grey is beginning to show through his curls. Still beautiful, and Rei gets caught up in a fantasy of the two of them, old marrieds, walking hand in hand along the peer once more. He wonders what he would have looked like in his fifties. Not bald, he hopes, even if his mom was always telling him he’d go bald from pulling on his hair so much.

He reaches a hand out to stroke along the image of Nagisa’s cheek, and that’s when he sees the flash of white, tucked beneath a glass of water on the side table. A note. A letter.

No, just one sentence. _You still remember me too, right?_

It’s like someone reaches inside him and snatches everything out at once. How could he ever forget? What sort of question is that? What is Nagisa thinking? Is he angry? Is he confused? Have forty years apart convinced him that ghosts are an impossibility?

Whatever it is, he sits there staring at Nagisa and pulling nervously at his fingernails the entire night. He’s not sure what he can do, if something is wrong. There’s no going back for him, not anymore, and he has no other way of communicating. He frets and frets and frets as the sun comes out, and Nagisa begins to stir inside his nest. Nagisa pokes his head out and yawns, and thunks his head back down into the pillow. Another few minutes pass. And then Nagisa raises himself up on one elbow, frowns, and then closes his eyes and smiles, the same infectious smile he’s always had. “You’re watching me right now, aren’t you Rei-chan? I feel all warm inside. It worked. She’ll never let this go.”

Rei has no idea what he’s talking about, but it’s been so, so, so long since he’s been able to listen directly to Nagisa like this. He changes his perspective so he can see Nagisa’s face better instead of a mass of blankets.

“I didn’t feel you watching me for so long. I got worried,” Nagisa continues, talking in a hushed, sleep-scratched voice and still not opening his eyes. “I thought you might have forgotten about me. But you’re here now again. I’m sorry for worrying.” He hums and flops onto his back. “I should tell you that you’re Uncle Rei now. Rei—little Rei, Kou-chan’s kid—decided that last night. Uncle Rei and Uncle Nagisa. It sounds good, doesn’t it?”

He made Nagisa worry. He was so worried about Nagisa forgetting him that he stopped watching and made Nagisa worry that he’d forgotten him. He feels so ridiculous and yet so relieved at the same time. What an absurd pair they are.

But Uncle Rei. Uncle Rei and Uncle Nagisa. It lines up so perfectly with that image of the two of them walking hand in hand along the beach, that what if.

“You want to know what else she said?” Nagisa continues, stifling a yawn, and Rei nods. Nagisa finishes his yawn and rubs at his eyes. “She said our story should have a happy ending. I think so too. I want that more than anything.” Nagisa smiles again. “So I have to keep living an amazing life, right? And you keep researching and discovering and doing amazing ghost things, and we’ll both have so much to tell each other. And maybe it won’t always feel like you’re watching me but I shouldn’t worry about that. I know you’re there. And you’ll know I’m here and we just have to do the best we can, right?”

Right.

“And I should probably stop talking before someone else hears me, but I love you, Rei-chan, you hear me?” Nagisa’s face goes very serious. “I love you. I remember you and I love you, every single day, so don’t forget that.” He nods decisively, and then adds with a short laugh, “But could you look in on me once in awhile maybe? I know you’re always there but...it would be nice to get some reassurance. Or little Rei will have me jumping on the sofa again. That was her idea. That if we yelled loud enough you’d maybe hear.”

He hadn’t heard a single thing, but Rei’s still shocked. What had caused him to hide himself away—as much as anyone could be hidden in this white, flat world—and pull up an image of Nagisa, something he’d been so reluctant to do for so long? A feeling, nothing more. While this young Rei was yelling for him to notice them. Could it be a coincidence?

Or could the living truly communicate with the dead as well?

He has to look into this further. He has to.

Nagisa jolts at a rap on his door, and then Kou’s voice orders him out of bed to help cook breakfast.

“Gotta go, Rei-chan,” Nagisa whispers. “I won’t see you later for a long time still, but make sure to sometimes see me, okay?”

Rei nods again, and watches Nagisa drag himself out of bed, answering Kou’s knocking with a grumbled, “Coming, coming…” He watches Nagisa help make the eggs to go with breakfast, and watches the four of them eat together in their pajamas. Rei, young Rei, reminds him a little bit of Nagisa when he was younger, if a little more refined. No wonder the two of them get along so well. Rei knows Nagisa had told her about him, knows she’s the only person Nagisa has told because Nagisa had said so, one night when he was talking to Rei years back now.

A happy ending. Their story should have a happy ending.

Well, if young Rei has decided that, it would be a shame to disappoint her.

* * *

 

He almost thinks he’s going to die. And so does everyone else apparently because when he wakes up in the hospital he thinks he’s hallucinating for a moment to see so many people crowded around his bed.

“Nurse! We need to call the nurse!” Makoto cries out, and there’s a mad dash for the door which three people get jammed in and Nagisa tries to laugh before he realizes that a.) his ribs hurt like hell and b.) he has an oxygen mask over his face. Laughing is a bad idea right now.

The nurse arrives quickly enough and orders everyone out of the room. Ren and her husband, Chiasa with husband and kids, Mizuki. Kou and Sahi and Rei. Makoto and Haru and Rin and even Ai. Nagisa watches them all file out. The nurse checks on his vitals, checks his eyes, asks him to blink to answer questions. If she would just take the stupid oxygen mask off he’d answer with words, but he blinks anyway. Yes, he’s in pain. Yes, he knows why he’s here. Some idiot with a sports car hitting him as he crossed the street with groceries. It’s not surprising to learn his leg is broken in two places along with one broken rib and two more fractured. Yes, some pain medication would be pretty welcome right around now, even if it makes him fall back asleep.

The next time he wakes up, the nurses remove the oxygen mask and the doctor comes in to speak with him. Nagisa just nods along to everything. Figures it will make things go along faster. And then he asks if he can have visitors.

“They’re clogging up the waiting room,” one of the nurses grumbles and Nagisa grins. They only let people in three at a time though. To not ‘excite him’. He feels like some sort of modern art exhibit as, in threes, his friends and family all come in to see him, staring at the cast around his leg and the bandages on his face that cover up various scrapes and bruises. When Rei comes in with her moms, Nagisa lifts an arm and she tucks herself underneath it, careful to avoid his ribs. Nagisa can see how red-rimmed her eyes are.

“I’m okay,” he assures her with a quiet voice. “I promise. Aren’t you missing classes?” Rei is in her final year at university in Tokyo, and he hates to think she’s spending time here worrying over nothing when she should be back at school.

“Yeah, I’m missing them,” she whispers, “But I don’t care. I thought...I thought…”

“It’s just a broken leg and some ribs,” he says. “I got off light.”

“But you scared me! You’re not supposed to die yet!”

“Rei, calm down,” Sahi tells her softly and Rei makes a face before simply resting her head on Nagisa’s shoulder. It hurts to move, but Nagisa raises a hand to grip hers and squeeze it.

“You completely broke all the eggs,” Kou says after a moment of silence and Nagisa gives the most exaggerated exasperated noise he can manage.

“Eggs? You’re thinking about eggs? While I lie here mortally injured? I have only moments left to live and all you care about is eggs, oh you cold-hearted woman!” It’s enough to make Sahi and Rei giggle and Kou and Nagisa grin at each other.

“You can keep staying with us once they let you out of the hospital,” Kou and Sahi tell him before they leave. Since his parents died, he always stays with them anyways when he visits Iwatobi, since they’re the ones with the spare bedroom.

“Well, I was out buying _your_ groceries,” he laments, before getting serious. “Get Rei back to school soon, okay?” he asks, and they both nod.

That night, after the nurses have done another one of their checks, Nagisa lies there and tries to figure out whether he can feel that warm sensation of Rei’s gaze. It’s hard to do, with his ribs aching this way. He figures he can talk to him anyway.

“I saw that car and really thought I was coming your way, Rei-chan,” he whispers. “And I’m gonna be stuck on a couch for who knows how long? And I wasn’t even doing anything dangerous! But it’ll be an excuse to get me out of grocery shopping forever, right?” That’s a nice thought. He hates grocery shopping. “Maybe it’s time to retire. I’ve loved working for the agency, but I have enough money saved up by now, I think. I can retire and go back to my favorite places, spend as much time as I want there. That would be fun.”

Of course, Rei doesn’t answer, and Nagisa is at a loss of anything to say next. Besides complaining about how much his ribs hurt, which Rei doesn’t need to hear. Maybe he needs some more pain meds now. “Bye Rei-chan. I’ll talk to you later,” he says, and presses the little button to call the nurse.

He ends up being stuck on the couch for six weeks, and he’s probably got every episode of every television drama memorized by the end of it. Sahi is very attentive and sweet the entire time. Kou heard enough of his bellyaching when they shared an apartment and is immune to his best puppy-eyes.

“I’m not giving you anymore cake. If you eat anymore cake you will have a heart attack and die on my couch and I am not dealing with that.”

He’s still on a healthcare plan with the travel agency, so he doesn’t call and tell them of his plans to retire quite yet. After two months and way before the doctor’s permission, he gets on a plane back to Paris. He crutches around the city for a bit before going to the main office and handing in his resignation letter. It’s been a good job. He’s sort of sad to leave it.

Because life can never be simple, he runs into Oliver as he goes to try to find somewhere to eat. Oliver is married now, with two dogs, and fusses over Nagisa and his crutches the whole time while they go to get coffee. They catch up over the next few hours, and Nagisa is so glad to see Oliver happy like this. He still loves Oliver, after all, even if that love is dimmer now, more a memory of a flame than the flame itself. But Oliver deserves a happy ending, the happiest ending, and it’s best if that ending isn’t with Nagisa since just because two people fall in love doesn’t mean they’re meant to be.

Oliver offers to let Nagisa stay at his place overnight, before his plane ride back to Japan in the morning, and while he’s initially cautious to stay at an ex’s home, Oliver’s wife turns out to be sweet as pie. He says goodbye to them both the next day and it’s back on a plane he goes. His doctor is probably going to kill him if he finds out he’s been travelling like this. To escape death by motor vehicle only to be strangled by a doctor. A tragic fate.

But another month later when he’s more healed, he gets Kou’s help in looking around Iwatobi for a nice home to retire to. It’s been so long he’s had a place to truly call ‘home’. In the end, he goes for an apartment on the first floor of the building, first floor so he can still mobilize with the impending approach of the Grim Reaper. Kou hits him over the head when he vocalizes that thought. “You could just say you’re getting old and don’t want to climb the stairs.”

He has to buy most of his furniture, of course, which is why it’s a good thing he saved up so much money while working with the travel agency by renting cheap and not keeping a permanent residence. A couple of local high school kids help out carrying the heavy stuff, and Nagisa thinks it’s funny he used to be that young, and then hates himself because that is such _old person_ talk. Next he’ll be complaining about how the winters just aren’t as cold as they used to be.

“There. You’ve officially settled down,” Kou says, when the two of them are alone that night on the sofa drinking tea.

“I guess I am.”

He’d bought a nice old double bed, like the one he had back when he was a teenager. He lies in it that night, wrapped up in blankets, and places a hand on the pillow on the other side of the bed. Rei’s side. “I’m not done having adventures,” he whispers fervently to the pillow before he falls asleep.

* * *

 

This is what makes the most sense: when the living need the dead the most, the dead still in the Netherworld are able to sense it. Perhaps not on a conscious level, but an unconscious one certainly. It explains why he has the sudden urge to look in on Nagisa only to find him hospitalized. It explains why a young man named Izumi pulls up an image of his best friend right before that friend is ready to end his own life, and Rei watches in awe as Izumi talks his friend down, even though his words can’t be heard. Maybe there is more to the Netherworld to simply watching over your loved ones.

The Matsuoka father had once told Rei that if his family truly needed his guidance, they would be able to feel his presence. Even if they wrote it off as just a feeling. And that’s been proven, to Rei, by the way Nagisa has been able to sense when Rei is watching. But now he’s discovering that the reverse can be true as well. He knows when Nagisa needs him, even if he doesn’t realize it. Izumi knew when his friend needed him, and was able to make his presence known so absolute that his friend had climbed off the edge of the bridge and gone home. Rei used to think the barrier between the living and the dead was far too wide, that returning to the living was the only way to make the dead known again. But perhaps that’s not true at all. Perhaps there are more overlaps between these worlds than he ever could have expected.

Even with all this new information to process, he still makes sure to make time to keep an eye on Nagisa. After little Rei (though she’s not so little anymore) finishes graduate school, Nagisa takes her on a trip across Europe, the two of them catching trains and sleeping in the flats of friends Rei met online. They go to Greece and Romania and Italy and Austria. Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Portugal, England, Ireland, Scotland. They’re gone for two months, taking as many pictures as they can and Nagisa spoiling Rei rotten with little souvenirs. It’s almost like a last hurrah, since she’ll be living in Tokyo after graduation, and, being a professor, probably won’t get much time off to visit Iwatobi.

One night, they sit along the Irish coastline, with the lights of the rental car illuminating them, and even though it’s freezing, neither of them are bothering with anything more than a thin jacket. Rei is lying down in the Netherworld with his head propped up on one arm watching, trying to pretend he’s there as well. He sees Nagisa glance down at his stomach, and then smile gently before nudging little Rei. “Your Uncle Rei is watching us right now,” he says softly, and her eyes widen. Rei, dead Rei, as he might have to start describing himself, puts his other hand over his nose and mouth as his nose starts to tingle. He cries so easily these days. But he wonders if Nagisa is imagining him being there just as he is. Maybe if they both imagine hard enough, it will feel real.

Little Rei turns her head around, but her eyes skip right past where Rei’s perspective is. He can still see her smile though as she draws her knees up to her chest and hugs them.

“Hello Uncle Rei,” she says, just like he’s sitting there with them and Rei sits up, wiping at his eyes as they start to turn foggy with tears.

“Hello Rei,” he whispers, even if she can’t hear, but he hopes she can feel how much he’s come to love her, seeing her through Nagisa’s eyes.

If Nagisa is living for both of them, Rei hopes he’s loving for both of them as well.

“Hello Rei,” he says, “It’s a pleasure to finally talk to you.”

* * *

 

Time seems to pass faster as he ages. Maybe that’s a blessing. He doesn’t like the creak of his bones and the way his chest feels tight after walking too fast. Doesn’t like it when he has to get glasses. Doesn’t like the way the leg he’d broken still aches in the winter. But maybe it’s not a blessing at all. He wants to be able to cherish every single last year he has with everyone, but the years seem to flash by in an instant, until it’s five years since he’s seen his old teammates, two years since he’s seen Ren. He still sees Chiasa and her family regularly, and of course Kou and Sahi. Rei comes home from Tokyo quite often as well, but he still feels like he’s running out of time.

He _is_ running out of time. Ren moves into a nursing home and dies within a year. At least he got to see her once, before the funeral. She’d been happy in the home. And that’s the beginning. He knows now that he’s going to watch his other sisters pass on, his friends. He needs to make sure to see them all, one last time.

Chiasa’s kids are all grown up now, all have their own jobs, spread out across the country, so he writes them. Chiasa and Mizuki he actually does go to visit. And Kou decides to hold a reunion for the Iwatobi swim team (plus friends) in her home. They call it a reunion, but Nagisa is pretty sure they all know it’s really a goodbye. You get a little morbid when you’re old too, he guesses. He has to laugh when he sees them all, grey and crotchety, no sign of their former athleticism left. They sit and eat and reminisce, and Nagisa wonders how he would be feeling now, if he didn’t know what was waiting on the other end. But he doesn’t fear death, not at all. Perhaps dying, he still fears, if that ends up being painful, but death itself he could never fear.

He’s able to hug everyone, one last time, before they all leave to travel home. For him, of course, the travel home is one short train ride away, and he spends it all trying to memorize the feel of his friends’ hugs the way he’d memorized Rei’s touch. Just so he has it.

It seems to happy so quickly then, all at once as the years scream by him. He begins to dread the ring of his phone, bringing the news that yet another one of his friends has died. It coincides with his bad leg acting up again, to the point he has a hard time getting around his apartment let alone the town. He could go to the doctor, he knows, but he’s eighty-six, and there are so many things wrong with him by now the doctor wouldn’t know where to start.

He manages to attend Rei’s wedding, cries as she kisses her husband and when she comes to hug him later. She’s the one who sits by his bed two years later, and holds his shaking hand as he coughs.

“It’s just a cold,” he tells her, but she refuses to leave his side, shaking her head vehemently each time he suggests it. She holds his hand tight in hers and drops her head, and Nagisa can see where her teardrops fall onto his bedspread. “Hey,” he whispers. “Hey,” he repeats when she doesn’t look up. “Can I tell you a story?”

She lifts her head just enough so she can see him, and he smiles before another fit of coughing wracks his body and makes his leg twinge. He leans back into his pillows and shuts his eyes, breathing in deep a few times to settle himself before beginning. “When I was sixteen, I was on the high school swim team.”

“You’ve told me this story, Uncle Nagisa,” she whispers.

“I know I have. But I want you to listen, okay? So I was on the high school swim team…”

He tells her a story. A story she'd heard before. About how he met Rei—his Rei—and jogged after him in the early morning with the flowers bright pink around them. About that disastrous bellyflop into the pool and discovering Rei couldn’t swim. About how happy he’d been when Rei had agreed to join the team anyway. About how he’d dragged Rei’s body up onto the beach and cried and cried for him to wake up. About how he felt so empty after Rei died, and about how Rei came back to him. About learning to let all the people who loved him help, about realizing Rei’s death wasn’t his fault. About falling in love. About Rei leaving without saying goodbye, and how he came back again. About that one night that they had to promise they’d always love each other, and then how Rei left again without saying goodbye, because it never really truly is goodbye. About how Nagisa has tried his hardest ever since then to live for both of them, and has gathered so many stories about places and people and tiny miracles to share. About his wondrous, miraculous, colorful life.

“You want to hear the ending?” he asks her, when he’s finished. He’s tired, after all that talking, and Rei is crying openly beside him. She wipes her eyes with his blanket.

“What’s the ending?” she asks. He reaches his other hand across and places it along the side of her face, and tells her.

* * *

 

Meeting Katsumi again is rough. He hugs his brother for at least five minutes before they let go, and then Katsumi gestures to the swim suit and tells him he looks ridiculous. Rei laughs, and sniffs, and tells his brother he missed him. And they’re definitely brothers because they’re both crying just a moment later. “Did you see Mom and Dad?” Katsumi asks, and Rei nods.

“They both went into the afterlife. Okay, let me explain a few things…”

He gets almost identical looks of surprise each time he greets one of his old friends from the swim team. He thinks he scares Makoto almost out of his skin. “Rei?”

“Hello, Makoto-senpai,” he says with a smile, and watches as Makoto, looking around thirty years old, stares around the Netherworld.

“What is this place, Rei? What are you doing here?”

He smiles again and shrugs one shoulder. “That’s a bit of a long story.”

And so he says hello again to Makoto, to Haru. To Rin, even though Rin wasn’t able to recognize him at first. And he waits. Waits and watches.

 

* * *

 

 

"Uncle Nagisa? _Uncle Nagisa?_

 

* * *

 

 

Nagisa dies peacefully in his sleep, with little Rei sleeping in the couch one room over. When she finds his body in the morning she just lies down next to him and cries. But she understands. Rei knows she must. And eventually she gets her phone to her ear and calls her husband to ask what she should do. Nagisa looks so peaceful beside her. Peaceful and smiling. Rei waves away the scene. He doesn’t need to see anything more.

He doesn’t need to do anything more either. He’s studied all he can about the Netherworld, established a network that spans for as far as he can see, of spirits helping spirits find their way, teaching them rules, comforting them when they’re still so scared and confused. Yes, that’s a perfectly fine legacy to leave behind. He can be done.

He can move on. Discover what the afterlife has to offer. Discover what his eternity can be.

But not quite yet.

 

* * *

 

“The ending,” Nagisa says, “Is that I die soon, but you shouldn’t be too sad, alright? Because then you know that I’ve found my Rei again, and we finally have our happy ending.”

 

* * *

 

He hears the footsteps before anything else. Knows without question who it is coming up behind him. “Hello Nagisa,” he says, and turns to see him, looking not a day over sixteen as he approaches, more beautiful than Rei remembers and smiling to outmatch the sun. Nagisa reaches out to take Rei’s hand in his, fitting them together like matching puzzle pieces, and, after waiting for so many years, they’re both finally back where they belong. Nagisa lifts their hands to his mouth and presses a gentle kiss on the back of Rei's hand before looking up at him, eyes gone soft.

“Hello again, Rei-chan.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> the end~  
> thank you everyone


End file.
